


Bless me Father, for I (we) have sinned.

by Aproclivity



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Fucking in a church, Possessiveness, Priest Kink, Religion Kink, Seriously this is not a fluffy fic, Suicide, This is a dark fic, alex reagan needs a sense of self preservation, canon typical levels of poor decision making, canon typical violence towards a child, creepy inappropriate touching, definite power imbalance at play, did i mention there are demons?, evil!priest!Strand, inappropriate uses of the confessional, non-canon AU, sacrilegious catholic imagery, sliding headfirst into hell, strand is a creepy mofo, strand's gotta strand even as a priest, this is a dark strand fic, too bad she doesn't get one, yeah we're all going to hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 02:10:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 50,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18436868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aproclivity/pseuds/Aproclivity
Summary: After eleven calls don't earn her a return phone call from Father Richard Strand, Alex Reagan's show takes a different path until she makes a rash decision to save someone else that puts her life--and soul, at risk. Father Strand, noted demonologist says that he can save her soul, but when it comes down to it the cure may be worse than the disease. (AU Evil!Priest!Strand fic. Heed the warnings, loves.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdyvixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdyvixen/gifts).



> So this is a dark fic. With a lot of creepy inappropriate touching, power imbalances and evil!Priest!Strand being an evil priest Strand. Tags will be added as they come into play, but definitely be prepared for all the ones there.

“So I guess what I’m really asking, Father Strand,” the reporter’s cool Canadian voice has hesitance in it, as if even the question itself was loaded, which in Alex’s mind it is. It has to be, it can’t not be after everything she’s seen. “Is are demons actually real?”

“Yes.” There is no uncertainty in the deep, rich voice and Alex can see why he has no trouble filling up the large cathedral that the two of them were sitting in a pew of, with her recorder between them on the surprisingly still plush red velvet. Alex knows that this is one church in Chicago that has had no trouble with donations, nor with flagging congregation numbers. She also is well aware that they’ve offered to make Father Richard Strand a bishop--a promotion that he refused in favor of doing his work in his own church. It wasn’t entirely unprecedented, but enough so that she’d found stories about it when Alex and Nic had done their research on him. 

There are talks of him being given the title of monsignor, in recognition of his works, but that was for Rome to decide. 

Father Strand lectures easily, as at home with the recorder as Alex imagines that he is from his pulpit. His words have a rhythm to them, in the way that he speaks, and Alex finds herself paying more attention to them and less attention to the questions that she should be forming in response to his statements. “Humans have made demons figments and creations of their own weaknesses, forged them into metaphors to make the supernatural less dangerous and less frightening. Someone who has a better way with words than myself said that “the greatest trick the devil pulled was making humanity think he doesn’t exist.’ I'm paraphrasing there, but it’s true. Humans who don’t believe, or have some false belief that the evil around them is their own doing leave themselves open for demonic intrusion into their lives _constantly._

“We’ve desensitized children with horror movies, allowing their fragile minds to form the idea that ouija boards and games that open doors in mirrors are nothing more than ghost stories. That the things below their beds can be vanquished with nothing more than good vibes and positive energy. But that just feds the demons and the delusions that they don’t exist more. Children make demons more powerful if they’re not careful. And you yourself have seen how that can happen with Sebastian Torres.”

Her head snaps up reflexively, as her spine tightens and Alex’s voice is quick and she’s on the defensive immediately. “I really didn’t come here to talk about the Torres case, Father.”

“Oh, didn’t you? Everyone knows of your involvement with the case through your show and with your partner, Tannis Braun.” The name is bitten out, chewed over thoroughly with something that is more personal that Alex is not aware of. It’s something she makes a note to ask Tannis about when she returns to the hotel. Alex had taken this meeting alone (well, if one counted Nic hanging around somewhere as ‘alone’) at Father Strand’s insistence and Tannis had been amused but hadn’t argued. The two of them had worked together on Alex’s new podcast _The Nature of Belief_ for several months now, and Tannis took his being forbidden to go in stride. 

Just like he took everything else.

“Dr. Braun isn’t here, Father Strand. _At your insistence_. It’s just me, and I didn’t come here to discuss what happened to Sebastian Torres. I know. I was there. I see it every night. You don’t need to remind me about what happened.” 

“And yet you’re still here asking a question that you have the answer to, Alex.” It was the first time he’d said her name, and Alex can’t help the little shiver that moves over her spine as he stares at her with his intense blue eyes. They radiate belief and electricity and now that they’ve locked eyes again, she finds it difficult to look away to the light pouring through the stain glass, the altar in front of them, or the confessional booth to the left. It seems like a like time since Alex has been in a church like this and even longer since she had spoken to a priest. 

There’s an intimacy here that reminds her of confession, despite the grand openness of the church with its naives and saints. Not for the first time, she wonders why they’re talking here rather than his office. She knows he has one, but this like everything else about Father Strand is an enigma—a puzzle she finds herself wanting to solve. Alex needs to blink a bit before she realizes that he’s reaching for her hand. “May I?” The words come only after he’s invaded the space between them, crossing the rubicon of the recorder to take Alex’s still bandaged palm between his long fingers. Father Strand has ‘piano fingers’ as her mother would have said. Amalia would have said something more raunchy but Alex just nods when he draws her hand towards his lap. 

It’s unnerving the way that his eyes on her own as he peels back the layers of tape on the white rolled gauze that has been a fixture in her life for the last two months. When people asked about it, Alex just laughs and says she burned herself because she’s clumsy. It’s not entirely a lie. She’s learned long ago that a good lie is close enough to the truth to make yourself believe in it. 

Alex almost does. _Almost._

In the sun and shadows light from the leadened windows, Alex’s hand looks tiny compared to his larger one, and the mark branded into her palm blinks almost a curiously crimson. Most of the time, the mark doesn’t bother her anymore. The blackness of the sigil had faded to crimson thanks to burn creams and the like, and it barely twinged, save for when she’d shaken his hand after they had met. The burst of pain was a sear in and of itself: sharp and harsh but gone so quickly it might have been something that she’d imagined. Or could have convinced herself that she’d imagined it, if the color had remained the bright pinkish hue of a wound on its way to becoming a scar that she’d seen this morning when she’d wrapped it freshly. It’s just the light, she tells herself, before she hears the sharp intake of breath that Father Strand makes across from her, and she can feel it against her face with how close they’d gotten without her even realizing it. 

Without asking, his fingers trace along the mark in her skin, following the lines and swirls of what she knows is sacred geometry. People had already told her that’s what it was. But of course no one could agree on what the sigil meant, and from the way Father Strand was staring at it, she wondered if sacred geometry fell within his purview of demon hunting and exorcisms. “Hmm,” he breathes as he leans forward a little more, his touch along the tender skin more insistent and dragging a sharp hiss of Alex’s breath in its wake. With her muscles tensing to jerk away, his hold tightens, before he looks into her face again. “Apologies, Ms. Reagan,” the words don’t particularly sound like one however, and Father Strand hasn’t released his grip on her hand either. 

“This mark is…” letting the sentence drag in that silence, Alex finds herself holding her breath as she awaits his judgment. Perhaps she is marked as one of the scholars had put it ‘for hell itself’. It’s a thought that her nightmares twist and turn into, shading any good dreams that might have once come to something dark and frightening, even when they just lingering on the edges, a proscenium to her brain trying to make space as Tannis would say. She doesn’t believe that either. 

She doesn’t know what to believe, and that notion works harder as Alex waits for some sort of answer. 

When it comes, it’s not a comfort and Alex knows that Father Strand doesn’t intend it to be one. It’s more scholarly than that, a professor passing judgment on a student’s piece. “Remarkable.”

“Remarkable.” Alex echos the word back to him, some harsh elements to her voice as she’s unable to keep the impatience out of her tone. As she’s starting to withdraw her hand, Father Strand’s grip just becomes more sound. “I suppose that’s one word for it.” There’s no attempt to keep the exasperated bitterness from her tone, she’s not feeling particularly charitable. 

“Oh but it is remarkable, Ms. Reagan,” Father Strand counters ignoring all of the sharpness in her voice in favor of softness from his own as he draws her attention back to the mark that she’s memorized so much that it constantly plays against the back of her eyelids when she attempts to sleep. “For a multitude of reasons, not the least of which it’s still present and clearly defined as it was the day that it happened.” Lifting his eyes from the mark to her own, Alex stopped trying to politely pull away as she awaited the guillotine of which question he’d ask. 

“It happened when you tried to pull Sebastian Torres from the circle, yes? When you crossed the boundaries of the geometry circle that Brother Edward was using for the sacrifice?”

Blinking, Alex gasped. That part of the show had never made it to air—legal and the police had grounded it. Most people didn’t even know audio evidence of what happened in the cabin existed, not even in the days of leaks and the hands of journalists. It’s something of a minor miracle to Alex herself, not that she’d admit it to anyone other than Nic when they were deep in their cups in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep, not even on his sofa surrounded by his dogs.

“Yes.” It’s an answer but also a question that Alex finds herself unallowed to continue as Strand spoke again. 

“Interesting. And it became covered in blood when you put your hands on Sebastian’s wounds in order to stop the bleeding and to save his life?”

“How do you know that?” Her voice is sharper now, and there’s a honed edge of suspicion in her tone. Most people know she saved Sebastian’s life that day, it was the story that they’d fed the press and that the press has thrived on, but how she’d done it other than CPR had been kept in sealed court documents for Sebastian’s privacy. 

“You’re not the only person the police consulted, Alex. Or the Torres family for that matter.” Strand isn’t trying to come off as smug, which makes him sound all the more smug sounding anyway. In another context, Alex might find it charming, but right now it’s just as patronizing as it sounds. Normally, Alex would have commented on it, but Father Strand’s dangled another thread in front of her, and it’s a lifeline she’s been searching for for the last six weeks.

“You’ve spoken to them? Is Sebastian okay?!” There’s a note of worry in Alex’s voice and a matching knit to her brow. After the initial press conference the family had refused all contact from her or anyone else at Pacific Northwest Stories. Alex supposed she should take comfort from the fact that they also denied all other media access to themselves despite the money that networks and bigger publications were throwing at the family. It should have been a comfort. 

It wasn’t. It isn’t. ‘Is Sebastian alright?’ is a question that whirls on the hampster wheel of her thoughts when Alex can’t even think about sleeping because her thoughts are too quick.

“Sebastian is fine. Now.” Alex doesn’t like the ‘now’ part of that sentence and her frown at him grows deeper. 

“You gave him an exorcism after all.” It’s not a question—it’s a cold statement of horrified fact. Alex knew that Robert Torres had been terrified of subjecting Sebastian to that, even if Maria was insistent upon it, once he’d been found. It had been the last conversation the two of them had, and it had been over bad hospital coffee in an overly bright emergency room hallway rather than over her recorder that had still been in police evidence at the time.

“The seal of the church forbids me from speaking about that, Alex. And it’s not why I accepted this interview with you.”

“It doesn’t seem like I’m interviewing you at all, actually. It seems like you’re interviewing me.” Alex’s hand jerks back towards her when Strand releases his grip slightly, and he just gives her an easy shrug, caught in something that he’s not ashamed to admit to. 

“I have a proposition for you, Ms. Reagan. Your studio once contacted me for an interview on your work.”

“ _I_ contacted you for an interview on your work. Eleven times actually,” Alex counters, her polite tones underlaid heavily with frosted anger weighing heavily on the recording that was still running. “ _You_ declined. _Repeatedly_ , I may add.” Something few people did when Alex Reagan wanted something from them. She’d honestly had never been so stonewalled in her life.

“A mistake I confess to making and one I am attempting not to repeat. You sought help from me once and now you’re seeking it again. I do the work of our Lord, Alex. I fight what is coming.” There’s that gleaming intensity in his eyes again, making them almost spark as he holds her gaze without really trying. “A fight that I now believe you are intimately a part of, that you made yourself a part of when you put your safety and soul at risk to save a small child from a terrible fate.” The truth in his words weighs heavily on Alex’s chest, and her head feels light like it did when she was in mass long ago and the altar boys would pass too closely to her with the brazier of incense and it’s thick fog of smoke. 

“What exactly are you proposing?” It’s a question that’s more tentative than Alex wants to admit to it being, and she still can’t look away, despite the swimming sensation in her head. It’s the subject matter, or the tone of his voice or her memories, or some sort of merging of the three, and Alex isn’t certain which and it unnerves her. All of this unnerves her as she cradles her hand with the sigil to her chest. 

“What you initially proposed to me, Alex. I allow you access to my work and what I really do behind the scenes. And in exchange, you allow me to figure out the reason for the sigil on your hand and how you were able to do what you did.” Father Strand leans closer to her once more, the urgency in his body and tone filling up the space around her and looming over Alex, before he just adds more softly, close enough for a lover, and almost in the same tone as one would take. “I want to save your soul, Alex. I believe that it’s in mortal danger and I’m the only one who can.” 

Looking into his face, Alex believes him. He’s confirming something that she’s suspected since the first nightmares, since she first got a glimpse into the gate that Brother Edward had opened and had called the Shadows from. Since her hand first burned when she walked into the first church. Alex believes him that he wants to save her soul from whatever is happening, and honestly, it only leaves her with a singular answer, as she tries to give him a smile. The lines are wavy and thin, spread too tight by eyes that are widened with fear behind her glasses. But Alex has more control over her voice when she just says, “okay. So when do we start, Father?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex tells Nic and Tannis about the change in the show, and moves into the caretaker apartment at the rectory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Strand is a creeper and Alex isn't taking care of herself, which includes not eating and losing weight that she can't afford to. I wanted to give that warning here in case anyone needed it. Also, I am five chapters down on this fic and am definitely going to hell. It's fine. For those of you who are into that, this fic has a playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YScEC6l0tv4hZnpeca9c7.

“I don’t like it, Alex,” Nic’s voice is heavy as he sits on the bed across from her, the food container in front of him empty. Alex’s is nearly full—she hasn’t really had an appetite in weeks and her burger is untouched in favor of scavenging of her fries. Her friends is full of concern as he just stares at her until she picks up the sandwich and takes a bite out and chews and swallows before he continues. She knows he wouldn’t continue until she does; it’s a new-old dance, and one that Alex feels is annoyingly Pavlovian, something she’d explained to Nic several times. 

Nic doesn’t care, he still does it anyway. It drives her insane. But then again everything does at the moment.

“It seems like Strand is trying to manipulate the story. We came to him months ago and he just had his assistant to call back. And now that there’s this he’s interested? It just. Seems really convenient for him now when…” Letting the sentence slide off Nic just looks to his friend and how she’s not wearing the heavy makeup she’d learned to apply from Sephora. The circles below her eyes stand out like bruises and her skin is pale beneath the splattering of her freckles. The look of concern isn’t new, but it’s more intense at the moment, and Alex is just choosing to ignore it--it’s something she’s done a lot of lately. 

“Besides, it’s not as if the show is going to be able to just keep us in a hotel indefinitely.” Nic and Alex were bunking together as they often did leaving the other adjoining single room to Tannis. 

“Yeah, I know. And there’s a solution to that. Father Strand has it. I mean I know you’ve got stuff to do with your murder forests and you can’t stay out here indefinitely either. But Our Sacred Mother has a caretaker apartment in the basement of the rectory. It’s empty now and Father Strand offered it to me while we work together.” Alex’s chin is up and she’s already prepared for the next question or accusation whichever one Nic is ready to lob in her direction. “But it’s small and he doesn’t think the diocese would like it if we lived together there when we aren’t married.”

“So now he wants you to live with him? Alex… that doesn’t seem very wise. There’s no separation there. It seems like he just kind of want to keep you under his thumb.”

“God,” Alex just mutters sharply as she shoves the food away from her quickly as if that makes the decision easier. “I’m not going to be living with him. The apartment is private with separate entrances and everything. Besides Nic, it’s not as if I’m going to be sleeping with him. He’s a priest for god’s sake!” 

Looking at her, Nic just tries another track and looks to the closed door. “What does Tannis say about all this?”

“You know Tannis. He’s fine with it.” Alex’s voice is a soft sigh and she just looks to the door too. “He’s fine with everything. He’s going to fly back home tomorrow and we’ll pick things up again when this gets sorted out.”

Tanis isn’t fine with it, but Alex doesn’t want to deal with that. Instead she just picks up another fry as a concession to Nic’s mothering and replays the conversation in her mind. 

_“I’m not a precognition specialist Alex,” Tannis’ voice is soft as he held onto her hands. “But I can see that this is going to lead you down a very long and dark road with Strand.” Before Alex could protest he added, “but I also know that it’s a road you’re going to walk with or without me. Or anyone else that you care for. You don’t want to endanger us.” It’s simply said, and Alex couldn't deny it even if she wanted to. So Tannis kept going. “You think Strand can help you so you’re going to agree with it and nothing that I or Nic, or anyone else says is going to make a difference to you. It’s just a fact.”_

_Tannis just sighed softly as he looked into her eyes and then touched her forehead gently. “I’m giving you a protection amulet, Alex.” It was almost like a magic trick with the way the long silver chain just expanded from his fingers as he moved his hands to put it around her neck. “Keep it under your clothing and against your skin. Don’t let anyone know it’s there. Don’t take it off. Ever.” Looking into her eyes he just added, “this is important Alex, and I know that you’re going to need all the protection you can get on this road.”_

_“Father Strand will be with me,” she countered softly but it wasn’t a protest as Alex took the pendant and tucked it below her clothing. “He’s not going to let anything happen to me.” Honestly she wished she felt as certain as she sounded when she looked to Tannis again._

_He doesn’t make any comment on her statement about Strand but he looked at her sadly. “Just make an old man a promise, okay, Alex. Help me sleep better at night.”_

_Frowning at Tannis she just nodded and he kissed her forehead softly. “If you need me call me. I’ll come Alex. Until then I’m going to fly back to Seattle. When this is over and you feel like you again, we’ll do this again.” He doesn’t sound like he believed it to her but Alex just nodded and hugged him tightly for a moment. Tannis is a friend and she trusted him._

_But she wasn’t going to stop this._

Withdrawing herself from her memory, Alex just shakes her head to Nic. “Look this is happening. I told Paul and Terry already. I need to do this and I’ll do it on my own if I have to. I’m hoping that I don’t. I’m hoping you’re going to look at this as my friend and not my boss, Nicodemus.”

“Alex,” he protests her name quickly. “I _am_ being your friend right now. This isn’t a good personal idea. You’re too fragile and not… and… Look, Alex, any other time I’d think you could go twenty rounds with Strand but right now…” He sighs softly. “I’m worried about you, Alex. We all are. You’re not sleeping, you’re not eating, you’re not being yourself. I don’t know if being away from your entire support system is the right choice right now.”

“Look Nic. Something is happening to me I don’t understand. That fifteen specialists don’t understand. But Strand might. I have to try. We both know that I can’t keep on like this. _Everyone_ knows it.” Her voice is soft and she just leans over and hugs him. “I know you’re worried. But I need you to be my friend and pack up some stuff. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here but…” 

But it felt like a while. It feels like a while. Nic just hugs her back, trying not to notice how he could feel the vertebrae through the sweater she was wearing over her pajamas. Sighing softly. “Okay. I’ll make arrangements when I get home, Alex. But I need you to promise that if you get in over your head, you’re going to call me. And we Skype every day to keep me in the loop of what’s going on.”

“Jesus Nic.” Alex’s exasperation is mostly a put on as she pulls back. “You’d think we’d never worked remotely before. Don’t worry. I’m gonna be fine and I’ll keep you in the loop. I promise.”

It was a promise that Alex makes again at the airport before he leaves, still giving her that dubious and concerned look. Alex knows how this look but the world seems small and she feels like the shadows at the corners of her eyes are almost moving as she takes the uber over to the address of the rectory that Father Strand had given her. It takes her a minute to see the sign in front of the huge Victorian house that designates it as the rectory in the shadow of the cathedral. The house is huge, and she lugs her suitcase to the stairs at the top of the porch with a sense of foreboding. It settles in over her as the front door opens before she even knocks. 

Strand is there, framed by the ornate glass paneling on either side of the door as he reaches out to take the heavy suitcase from her. He’s wearing just his shirtsleeves in the dim light of the setting sun, and his eyes are shining intensely as he watches her. Feeling slightly more small than she did before, Alex attempts to suppress the shiver that threatens below her coat. 

“Alex.” Her name is loaded in that slow and deep tone that he uses and it’s all he says for a moment as she nods. 

“It’s me.” It’s a stupid thing to say, and Alex’s cheeks fill for a moment before she seems to remember something of the manners that her mother placed within her. “Good evening, Father Strand. Thanks for letting me stay here.”

“Did you come alone? Your friend Nic didn’t come along to help?” His tone is strictly neutral but Alex is almost certain that he’s pleased by this. It’s surprising somehow but also not—Alex remembers how insistent he was about his invitation not open to Nic. 

“Nope.” The word comes with a smile as Alex tries to pull on her normal self. “Just me. He’s going to be sending me some stuff from my apartment. Clothes and notes and things like that. I had them just sent to the address you gave me.”

“Of course. My assistant will make certain that they’re accepted.” Alex smiles at him, the expression reassuring herself even if it’s not for him. “Please,” he says after a moment of the two of them standing in silence and he gives her a wry smile. “Come inside. I’d like to show you around if I may. I’m afraid the caretaker apartment isn’t fitted with a kitchen so you’ll need to make use of the one here.”

Following into the foyer, Alex is overcome with a sense of grandeur and this is definitely not like the rectory house that was like the church she attended as a child. It’s actually bigger than her parents home back in Vancouver and she’s frankly certain that her own apartment in Seattle could fit into the bookshelf-lined hallway that they are passing through. The titles pop out at her, flowing easy at eye level and she shivers a bit trying to decide if so many books and journals on demonology is a good thing or a bad one. 

So as they walk, Alex defaults into journalist mode, trying to create a barrier between what was around her and the shadows in her mind. “So I read that the house was here even before the church was? That the family that donated the land donated the house as the rectory once the cathedral had been completed?”

Letting out a huffy laugh, Father Strand just shakes his head a bit, flipping a switch as they walked into the large kitchen. “You’re not recording this, are you Ms. Reagan?” There’s a note in his tone that almost seems flirtatious but Alex just passes it off as him trying to be more open and friendly. Nothing else makes sense. 

“Nope.” Alex responds in kind, some of her normal warmth being reclaimed from the weirdness by the normalcy that she can feel in their conversation. “I just happened to do a little research last night.” A beat and Alex just admits, “I don’t sleep very well, so it happens sometimes. Is it true that your family has supported the church since its creation?”

Father Strand set down her suitcase as he leans against the kitchen counter and Alex is surprised by how modern it is. The entire kitchen looks as if it could have come from some sort of Pinterest board. “I must admit I’m impressed. Until I became the priest here, the Strand family kept its tithing well below wraps. I’m surprised you were able to find it.” The look he’s giving her is more shrewd and appraising, and Alex can’t help but wonder what it means. 

Finding the information wasn’t even difficult. 

“But yes, the Strands have supported Our Sacred Mother since before it’s inception. As you’re aware, no doubt, my great great grandparents were the one who first put up the funding for the church after they arrived here from upstate New York.”

“Sorry.” The word is a reflex as Alex just stands near the table, caught in a place between comfort and hovering. “I didn’t mean to…” Alex didn’t mean to find the personal connection between himself and the church, or his family and the church or anything at all actually. Father Strand just waved his hand to her, brushing it off. 

“There’s no need to apologize, Alex. I’m glad that you were able to find it. Your doing so gives me faith in your research skills that we’re going to be able to figure this out.” For a moment the two stare at one another and Alex can’t help but wonder if that was a compliment or not. 

“I’m sorry,” he adds after a moment. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“No thanks, I’m fine. I ate with Nic before he left.” There’s a sense of angry disappointment from him for just a moment before she adds, her tone soft but placating. “Breakfast would be nice though. And coffee. Lots of coffee. I kind of run on coffee.”

“Then I’ll make certain Ruby gives you a small coffee maker for your own space tomorrow.” Alex knows that Ruby is his assistant—she’s spoken with the woman many times in the past. 

“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like me.” Alex just admits softly with a little shrug and a good attempt at a soft laugh. 

Father Strand makes that huffy laugh of his own once more and Alex is fairly certain that she can feel the rhythms of it pulling against her core. It’s a bad sign and she knows it, so she just shoves it down and forces herself to pay attention to something other than that sound that echoes within her. She’s glad when he continues, “Ruby is not a fan of most people. That’s why she’s my research assistant. But I’m sure you two will get along eventually.” There’s almost a threat in that statement though if it’s for herself or Ruby, Alex is unable to tell. 

“I had her make you a list of the important codes for the rectory. Your entrance is private as I mentioned, but the fence has a coded lock on it for the church’s safety. There’s also the codes for the alarm for the house if you need something within it, the codes for the apartment itself, and of course.” There’s that wry smile again. “The code for the WiFi. I’m fairly certain that any modern reporter wouldn’t be able to live without that.” His tone seems flirty but she knows it’s not. It can’t be. 

That doesn’t stop her from how she automatically responds with what she calls ‘professional flirting’ in her voice. “Well, it certainly makes life easier to have it. Nic would probably murder me if I didn’t.”

The smile is still on his face, but Alex immediately feels wrong-footed for bringing up her boss. There’s something subtly sharp in the air there, and Alex automatically takes a step forward, trying to figure out a way to fix it. 

“We should get you downstairs,” Father Strand decides, authority in his voice after a heavy, weighted moment. Pulling out a ring of keys from his pocket, he steps closer to her. “The key for your front door,” he announces, pulling it to the top of the ring. “The key to the rectory if you need something within it. There’s also the key to the church in case you need me in my office there. On your list of codes my schedule is printed so you’ll know if I’m in confession or what not.”

As Alex reached to take the keys from him, his hand closed over her own, holding it as it did yesterday. The flash of pain came again and for a moment Alex could swear that it flared in his eyes in response to the heavy hiss of breath that she made. For a long moment there was just silence between them before he steps back, holding onto her hand until he’s out of range to do it. 

Stepping and turning from her without saying anything about the moment, and how he’s rendered her speechless (no easy feat, if she’s honest) Father Strand moves to the fridge and pulls out two bottles of water, handing one to her. “There’s a mini fridge downstairs but it’s not stocked yet. I’ll have Ruby do it tomorrow. Shall we?”

He doesn’t wait for her response as he picks up her suitcase, leaving Alex to follow him out the back door and then down the steps into the apartment. Pulling out keys of his own, he opened the door and just shrugs at the look she gives him. “Apologies, Alex. It’s a force of habit.” Another force of habit it seems is to hold the door so she can walk in ahead of him.

Shifting the laptop bag and purse on her shoulder, Alex enters what her home for the next however long she’s here is and blinks. It’s white. It’s _very_ white, almost blindingly so. The walls of the small space are stark, save for the large crucifix on one wall, taking up a huge amount of space on the wall above the desk. The wood of it is stained a heavy black, and the feel of age on it is almost oppressive. Carvings the likes of which Alex has never seen curl around it, forming pictures almost in her mind. 

Revulsion is quick and cold in Alex’s stomach, and she looks away from it, becoming aware of the heaviness of his gaze upon her. If he thinks her response is odd, Strand doesn’t say and instead he moves to set the suitcase on the bed of the large but single room. The bright blue of the duvet is the only other shade of color in this room, and a fleeting thought passes through her mind: it’s almost the exact shade of his eyes when they are burning with intensity. 

A more cynical part of herself, one that sounds like Nic can’t help but wonder if it’s intentional. The bedding looks new and luxurious, out of place with the stark blankness of the rest of the apartment. Alex wonders if she should say something but she doesn’t because Strand does. 

“The bathroom is through there,” gesturing to a door Alex didn’t see at first, “there’s fresh towels in there for the morning. If you leave things in the hamper within the housekeeper will make certain that they come back clean. There’s also a closet for your things next to the mini fridge. If you’re looking for a television, I’m afraid Travis took it when he left. If one is required, I’m certain I could provide one.”

“I have my laptop,” the response is quick and she gives Strand a smile, trying to focus on things. “What happens when you hire a new caretaker, Father?” The question was one on Alex’s mind even before she’d been shown the space and it’s more clearly prevalent now. 

“Having someone live here who works the grounds is inherently impractical.” Father Strand’s words are dismissive. “Besides I’m certain that we’ll make better use of the space doing our work than a groundskeeper would.”

There’s something in his tone that makes Alex look away, instead placing the keys on the desk which meant that she found the list of codes there. Noting them, her laptop bag and purse follow the keys before she looks away from the desk and towards him again. 

In the middle of the space that’s meant to be hers, Father Strand seems to fill it with more than the additional height he has on Alex. For a moment she doesn’t say anything and neither does he. It’s a long silence, stretching out as they watch another before Strand makes almost a show of looking to the heavy and expensive watch on his wrist. 

That’s definitely not church approved, Alex thinks, before he steals her thoughts by placing another one in them. 

“It’s rather late for me, Alex. I tend to get started quite early in the morning with mass, if you’d like to attend. I’m afraid you’ll be woken by the bells in any case.” He paused, as if he’s weighing something before he adds, “would you like me to pray with you Alex? It might help you sleep easier.”

For a moment, she can’t say anything but traitorous steps draw her closer to him as if her body has determined the answer before her mind could. The intensity is there in his eyes before he speaks in a low tone, the order there iron below silk. “On your knees, Alex. One doesn’t receive benediction while standing.”

Perhaps it’s the weariness in her body, perhaps it’s the part of her that still responds ‘and also with you’ after so many years of being a recovering catholic. Perhaps it’s just hope: hope this will work, hope she’ll sleep, hope that _something_ will work to help make her the Alex that she was before she broke that circle but without protesting Alex found herself on her knees before him, her hands twisting together like her mother had taught her when she said her prayers on the side of her bed at night. 

He seems taller above her somehow, and the sense of looming becomes nearly overwhelming as he just smiles down at her. Without speaking, Father Strand just reaches out his hands to touch her. The first rests on the top of her head, but the second moves through the heaviness of Alex’s long, loose hair to rest against the skin of her neck. Making eye contact with him until she can practically hear her mother behind her whispering ‘Alex we pray with our eyes shut because that’s how god knows we mean it,’ she closes her eyes with her head bowed. 

Father Strand remains silent for a moment, his fingers working against the back of her neck before he begins to speak softly but with great authority. “Father, I ask that you protect and guide your child Alex through the trying time that she is experiencing. I ask that you help her find calm and pleasant sleep and banish all dark thoughts and feelings of what’s around her. I ask that you guide my hand so that I may guide her away from her torment and that you once again make her your faithful servant. In your name, amen.”

“Amen,” Alex repeated dutifully, but she didn’t open her eyes as his hands were still on her. Slowly the one from her neck moved down her shoulder, making her shiver before it slid from her body. The fingers on her forehead moved, forming the familiar feel of the cross, but that too lingers, and she can feel her palm burn. Holding her breath, Alex realizes that Father Strand’s moved even closer to her, and the smell of his cologne forms blooms around her, expensive with a mix of the incense from the service caught in the fabric of his clothing. He’s close enough to kiss her, she realizes after a moment, the thought surprising her so much that Alex needs to squeeze her eyes even more tightly together so that she doesn’t open them to see. His voice is low in her ear, a quick murmur of unfamiliar Latin that she can’t place before Father Strand pulls back, his presence lessening as he steps away from her. 

The warmth of his hands linger, the muscles that had started to relax below the movements of his fingers going tight with the ghost of the contact. Her forehead almost seems to burn, and Alex wonders if there would be a dark mark in the center where he touched, a sign of faith or lack thereof like people on Ash Wednesday. 

But if there’s one thing that Alex Reagan is not, and has never been it’s a coward, so she opens her eyes and looks at him and it’s almost like he didn’t move closer to her at all. 

Maybe she’s losing her mind. 

Maybe she imagined it. 

Maybe he had just moved away with more speed than she attributed to him at first. 

Either way (any way) Father Strand’s expression was inscrutable before he spoke softly. “I should let you sleep. Good night, Ms. Reagan. Don’t forget to lock up and set the alarm behind me.” The last words were over his shoulder and Alex just blinks as she rolls to her feet. 

“Good night, Father.” The confusion is evident in her voice but she dutifully follows him to the door, shutting it behind him as he moves up the steps. The deadbolt is flicked before the rear porch light of the house goes off and Alex just leans against the door, her hand rubbing lightly at her forehead and determinedly not looking to see if there was anything on her fingertips. Of course it didn’t stop Alex from muttering “what the hell was _that_?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Reagan has a nightmare that is her memory of what happened to both her and Sebastian Torres. Warnings in this chapter for violence against a child, and for violence against Alex and for a suicide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along the road to hell with me. The warnings have been updated to include the current chapter, which includes violence against a child, violence against Alex and ritualized suicide. 
> 
> Also thanks for comments and kudos, my computer is down so I'm posting this from a library. Whoops going to hell. We're hitting almost 20k words with this fic so yeah, we're still going. Looking forward to you're reactions to this.

Alex had been sleeping restlessly for the past two weeks. (Well, she’d been sleeping terribly for the last two months, so perhaps restlessly was a step up.) Her days were spent here in the house in the Strand library, going over everything book on sacred geometry that he had possessed. 

People who had fought demons or who had invited them in were interviewed, Alex doing everything she could to attempt to not coil into a ball of fear in front of Father Strand. But the stories… the stories were too much not to claw into her throat and settle into her guts and brain when she tried to let things go to sleep. 

There’s a small and cynical part of herself that wonders if he’s doing it to frighten her. Honestly Alex thinks that Father Strand doesn’t think she’s scared enough of all this. 

He’s wrong. She’s fucking terrified. 

But maybe it’s his prayers or being in the church but her dreams hadn’t been that terrible. Hadn’t until the familiar fog of shadows that was the woods in Los Gados slowly started to bloom into the normality of the dream she was having, shooting upwards to fill the blue sky with shadows and darkness. Any noise is blotted out by the deadly stillness that turns her heartbeat into a threatening roar in her lungs as she attempts to capture her breath.

It was their second day in the forest, with Tannis following the pull he felt towards Sebastian. The sheriff department had called Tannis in and he had brought along Alex as his plus one. The path that the two of them had taken was crooked, weaving back and forth through the underbrush that raked at Alex’s legs. She wasn’t wearing shorts, not after the first day. 

Then Tannis stopped on a path that Alex could see lead to a clearing. Beneath his brimmed hat, his tanned skin paled, souring into milk as he looked to Alex, and then to the clearing before them. “He’s here. Sebastian is here. But he’s not alone. There’s something dark with him.” As Alex is checking her GPS for coordinates to radio the police search party, “it’s dangerous,” Tannis voice dropped, and for the first time Alex realized that he was truly frightened by this. “We shouldn’t be here. _You_ shouldn’t be here Alex.” 

“We’ve got to radio in.” Alex’s frown is fixed as she talks to the dispatcher, giving them the coordinates and describing the shack in front of them. They’re told to wait for further instruction when the first scream rips through the unnatural silence. It’s thin and as small as the boy who made it, fear and terror weaponized so fully that Alex just wanted to drop to her knees and cover her ears against a song she’s already certain that she’s never going to be able to remove from her mind. 

“We’ve got to help him.” The desperation in her voice is evident and she looks to Tannis who might as well be entirely shut down at that point. “We’ve got to save him, Tannis. Come on.” A beat as she tugs at him, completely ignoring the way that the hand that normally holds the recorder has allowed it to fall loose and unheeded to the strap around her left wrist. 

The second scream hitches her breath, and Alex can feel it like the scourging of a whip over her back as she looked to Tannis and away from the cabin. Pitching forward, Alex just grabbed his shirt. “Tannis, come on.”

“Alex, no you can’t go in there. We can’t. We need to wait for the police to do this. We have to wait!”

Terrible things come in threes, and when his scream ripped into her a third time, Alex just shoved herself away from him and her pack off in one jerky motion as adrenaline slammed into her. “Alex. Alex, you can’t.” Tannis tried to capture her hand, but a lifetime of running had broken her out of the sphere of his space, and his voice carries it’s warning unheeded to her ears. “Alex don’t, you have no idea how dangerous this is!”

But Alex Reagan had never really feared danger, and the need to save Sebastian overrode whatever sense of self preservation that had been carried over from her childhood. Keeping her head down to watch the undergrowth, Alex ran through the woods that are always longer in her dreams than they were in actuality. But finding the cabin, and it’s open door meant that Alex didn’t even slow as she passed through the darkness into the cabin. 

It was like hitting a wall at first, and Sebastian screamed again as the sacred geometry flickered and burst into flaming runes, it’s elements brightening to create a stronger whole. The man wrapped in gray burlap who was carving symbols into the boy’s chest didn’t even look at her and Alex just looked around quickly. 

A sturdy branch turned walking stick was leaning against the wall closest to her, and Alex picked it up, feeling the weight of the wood and it’s symbols in her left hand. With her right, she just pushed at the circle. It flared even brighter, leaving spots in her eyes and the pain nearly drove her down onto her knees as flames licked sharp lines and edges into the tender skin of her palm. 

If she was someone else, Alex might have drawn back, but determination always fell somewhere on the line of sin and virtue for her, tap dancing across it when she needed too. Perhaps she would have stopped if there wasn’t the whimper from the boy on the floor in the middle of the circle. Moving forward, the flames parted for Alex and they allowed her to pass through. 

But their allowance wasn’t spared another thought as she looked to the bald and bearded form of Brother Edward. Lost perhaps in purpose, or maybe the ecstasy of what he was doing, he didn’t realize that there was danger for him until the wood hit is head with a resounding crack. Alex Reagan had been her father’s only child and he’d taught her how to swing a bat when she was still young enough to want to. His words about visualizing the bat going through the ball were helpful even when the ball was a human head, and the monk slumped to one side of the circle. 

Without thinking about it, but with hope, Alex moved to kneel over Sebastian, her dominate hand and the pain it was in entirely ignored in the face of the sickly shade that the boy’s skin had taken. It was ashy and nothing like the glowing boy that had been pictured in the school photo that she’d needed to take the school photographer out of. Yes it was still weird Maria Torres didn’t allow photos or videos of her son to be taken but it didn’t matter because Alex would have known him anywhere. 

“It’s okay, Sebastian.” Alex’s voice is soft, filled with conviction as she applies pressure to the pentagram carved in the boy’s chest. It’s deep, too deep and the blood flows too freely but she’s convinced of her saving him anyway. “The cops are gonna be here soon and they’re gonna bring an ambulance. I know your mom and dad miss you a whole lot.”

As she speaks Alex needs to bit down on her lip in order to stop the fractured scream from coming. On her burnt hand, Sebastian’s blood feels like acid, searing through it and forcing Alex to keep talking so she doesn’t start screaming. Tears flow freely down her face, mixing with the blood on his chest as she keeps talking in a wavering tone. “You’re gonna be fine kiddo. I know your mom even has your bear with her so that she can give it to you as soon as she sees you. And they’re gonna hug you so tight! Both her and your dad.”

“Who are you?” It’s whimpered and Sebastian’s pain is still evident as is the shallow level of his breathing. Silently Alex just prays to whatever may be listening that her promises of his being okay will turn out to be true. 

“My name is Alex and I’m a friend who was helping look. We just got lucky when we found you.”

“Alex.” He says her name like a prayer and Sebastian’s breathing seems less bad and Alex just breathes a sigh of relief before she kissed his forehead. 

“We’re gonna get you out of here and back home kiddo. We just need to wait a little longer okay?”

“Do you promise?”

“Of course. And I never break my promises. And I know it hurts to press like this but it’s important okay?” Those words were to herself as well as to him because her hand was still being scorched by everything. In the silence of their combined heavy breathing, the droning of a helicopter started to fill the air. “See. Gonna be here really…”

Alex didn’t get to finish the statement. Instead she just screamed, tumbling off of Sebastian to the left side of his body. Her hands ripped away from his wounds to the one in her right side and Alex just missed having the wound to her hand being mangled even more by the way that Brother Edward pulled the ceremonial dagger from her body. 

Blood rushed there, feeling oddly light and thin comparison to the weighty copper that her hands had been coated with on Sebastian’s wounds. Edward had been ready to stab her again and she knew it as Alex held up her hands to fend him off to try and prevent the one wound from becoming the circles and marks on. Sebastian’s chest. 

But then Brother Edward laughed. And it was the most terrifying sound that Alex Reagan had ever heard. It was a sound of rusted wonder that moved over her spine with sharp nails, making her want to curl into a ball. But what happened next surprised her even further . He spoke in a language too harsh and sharp to understand and then he touched her hand with the mark gently. “I’m sorry.” A word followed that was denied to her even in her dreams and then the monk moved to the edge of the circle. 

“I understand now,” the wonder was still in his tone when he spoke. “Father accept this sacrifice.” Instinctively, Alex threw herself over Sebastian’s form once again to protect him not caring that she was bleeding on the boy as she watched over her shoulder. But the man didn’t come near them. Instead the monk drew the wet blade across his own throat, grinning madly as he did it. 

Blood sprayed over them, hot and red and like something out of a horror movie as Alex just covered Sebastian’s eyes. “Don’t look,” she whispered to him, a tiny prayer of a plea. “Just keep your eyes closed and they’ll be here any minute. We’re okay. I promise.”

He whimpered and asked for the promise of being okay again as Alex kept the hand that was marked pressed against her side and the other one pressed against his eyes. Just in case he opened them when he got curious. Alex knows the call of curiosity well. Too well actually and there’s no one there to stop her from looking at the place where Brother Edward’s body had fallen. 

Blood had looked black in the dimness of the cave almost seemed to become darker, iridescent. Fingers of it stretched forward slowly, curling and unfurling towards the southern wall. Or at least where the southern wall should have been. Instead there was blackness, and inky incandescent outline of a wide door that was filled with things. Things the likes of which Alex Reagan had never seen. 

There were things that were tall, dark and looking as if they were a child’s drawing that had been stretched out. Their fingers were long and spidery and they reached for her and Sebastian with hungry expression. She could smell the hunger and stink from them like an assault to her nose and lungs. 

Other demons were there too, ones that were hairy and hunched over, their skin hairy and long as it looked to her. The demons laughed, and it went through her core in a way that she couldn’t explain. It seemed like there were hundreds of them hungrily pressing at the door in an attempt to escape. 

They didn’t pass the barrier of the blood and Alex didn’t scream then. She didn’t scream because she didn’t want Sebastian to look. She didn’t scream because the pain and heaviness was spreading over her. Alex didn’t scream at the time because sometimes reality poisons your lungs and takes even that small action from you. 

But there was no such hold in her dreams and Alex screams. She screams for herself and for Sebastian. She screams for anyone who’s needed to see what it was that she saw. And Alex screams because there was something new in the dream, something with eyes the color of the blue of a flame. 

“Alex.” Her name is sharp and a command, coupled with fingers curled over her shoulders. “Alex!” His voice says her name again and she has no choice but to obey and to leave the dream away from her, clinging to the cobwebs of reality and the steel in Father Strand’s voice as she wakes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Alex's nightmare, Strand wakes her. (Whether or not it counts as comforting her, you decide.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because it came up and I want to clarify, Alex has been having these dreams for two months since she's saved Sebastian, other than the two weeks that she's been at the church, which had kept her nightmares away so far. Well, until the last chapter I guess. Thanks for all the comments and kudos, and brace yourself for creepy Strand.

It had been two weeks, two weeks since Alex Reagan had first shown up in his church like the lost little bird that he’d imagined her to be when he received that twelfth phone call from her. Her voice had been soft and tired and defeated on his voicemail and it was either pure chance (or divine providence) that he had listened to it before Ruby had deleted it unheard. It was something he’d had to speak about rather forcefully. 

Rolling over in the confines of his king size bed, Father Strand moves to the colder side of the four hundred count sheets and closes his eyes for a moment, just replaying the message she had left him. He’d listened so many times before she’d come and even since that he knew every word, every pause and every breath of hers in it by heart. 

_“Hi Father Strand, this is Alex Reagan again from Pacific Northwest Stories. I know it probably should be clear from the other eleven voicemails that I left you several months ago that you’re not interested in the show. But…” Alex paused there, and her voice softened, vulnerability shining and cutting through the professional tiredness that colored the rest of her message. “I think I need your help. I’m pretty sure that I may actually. I’m hoping that you’re going to say yes this time, Father Strand. I think you might be the only one who can help me with this. Please just. Call me back.” A long pause and then the last word was colored with desperation. “Please.”_

When she’d first called him eleven times, Strand had been annoyed; who was this annoying reporter to think that she merited time and effort. Of course he’d still replayed the messages she’d left with him directly, letting the cool tones of her voice and the Canadian accent that she’d mostly tried to shed wash over him. It was a temptation those calls, Alex Reagan was a temptation and now she was one that he’d given into wholeheartedly. 

Of course she didn’t know that he had. Alex couldn’t know the way that his attention lingered on her when she came to morning mass after that first morning she’d missed. Strand hadn’t lied about those bells or how loud they were. But they were almost a siren song, calling his Alex to his flock. His eyes had found here there, from where he’d served at the high altar, where she’d been sitting tentatively in the rear shadows. The air around her had shifted, the shadows she carried with her melding and merging with the ones who normally lingered there, circling around her like she was prey. 

Of course Alex wasn’t prey—not any longer. Not for those shadows that once may have thought that their claim was staked. The mark on her palm was their connection to her and nearly everyone involved knew that. Well everyone save for his little lamb herself. Alex Reagan had been lost, but now she was found, fluttering around the edges of her destiny and how it orbited his own. 

Frustration bloomed over him once more, driving any thought of sleep far from him. She was here, she was here and sleeping within the confines of his house, his family’s house. Of course she wasn’t where she should be, not yet, but appearances must be kept. Father Strand still had much worked to do—work that would be impeded if it came out to his followers on either side that below the veneer of the black, Richard Strand was still a man. He was a man who wanted, a man who lusted and a man who was being tormented by the slightest bit of sweetness on the air from where he’d left her lost scarf below the extra pillows on his bed. 

The scarf was simple, colored in spring shades of green and dotted here and there with embroidered flowers. It smells of spring, Easter lily pollen from the altar, honey from the lotion she used and coffee where it had caught on one of the edges of the silk. She’d inquired about the scarf of course once she’d left it in the church but had been told no one had turned it in. Sister Melissa had secured it for him and now he knots his fingers around the delicate fabric, bringing it to his nose. He can still smell her hair in it, warm and light and herbal. When he is done with his nightly prayers over her, the scent is bloomed into his skin like a pollinated promise—it clings to his hands and his mouth from where it almost touches her head each night. 

It’s there on his lips now, smoothed in by quick fingers. Father Strand has a good imagination and he knows how it will taste when he drink from the source of her lips. When he guided his fingers into her hair and his cock into that pretty mouth of hers that always seems so ready for it. But those are the night moments that he twists and pines for. 

Mostly he just wants her. Strand wants Alex from below the artifice of paint that she wears to hide the shadows. He wants to trade the makeup covering her freckles for his tongue. Soon. It will be soon she will see and when she sees she will know. 

And when she knows, Alex Reagan will come to him and the what they are really meant to do will begin. He has time he knows, time to earn her trust and her smiles and her place in this bed beside of him. There in her place where nothing but the sigil on her hand and the harsh marks of his lips and teeth along the pearl white clavicle that follows the line of her pretty throat. 

Soon it would happen, what was meant to happen. Soon it would spread. Soon there would be nothing left for her but him and the things that he knows and the things that he will train her for. That she’s already been trained for her entire life. Alex Reagan was always meant to be his: the mark on her palm and the rest that would come would solidify that fact and bond them in a way that not even god himself would be able to deny. 

But soon was not now, and she was too far away yet. So instead he breathed into her scarf and parted his pajamas. This was strictly physical. This was a release he needs in her name so that tomorrow in the light of the day their dance can continue. Two steps forward, one step back but for now he fisted the scarf and moved it over himself, shuddering her name in low whispers. Though Alex couldn’t hear them, they were promises of how good he would make her feel. Soon. Very soon now, he wouldn’t need to make due with shades of her. The woman he wanted, the woman he was promised would be in his bed and there was nothing that heaven, earth or hell itself could do to stop it. 

Finishing quickly, Strand moved the scarf to the drawer so that he would have it again the next time that he needed it. The next time that he needed her. The need for her is sharp and harsh and hot against his skin, and Father Strand needs to exert his not inconsequential will over the desire to go downstairs and press his flesh against hers. 

But providence provides, on both sides, and Father Strand’s eyes immediately open and he’s sitting up and reaching for his glasses in one movement. Screams, sharp and terrified and pained echo around him, the distance between the two of them not doing much to buffer the sound. Being thankful for the fact that the house has a wide grounds and few neighbors, Strand throws the blanket off and adjusts himself, looking as normal and dignified as one can in the middle of the night when woken by screams. 

Having just the right amount of bedhead is humanizing as it were. 

Bare feet padded down the carpet on the center of the grand staircase and Father Strand just turns off the alarm as he reaches for the keys he left on the key ring holder. It’s not odd, he tells himself, that he still keeps her key on the normal key ring he carries every day. It’s not weird that he turns off the code in her apartment before he finds her there in her bed. 

Alex’s blankets are twisted, half on the floor and half around her like shackles, and the fear is making her skin white. In the light he’s turned on, Strand can see what she’s hiding, the way that her face looks almost bruised, something not helped at all by the crying in her sleep. He can see the body that she hides below her clothing and sweaters and vows to make her eat more. 

As he moves closer to her, he can see a long silver chain around her neck, her struggles having pulled it loose form the perfect valley of her breasts. What he sees on it practically makes him hiss sharply, and he wants to find Braun and punish him for bringing such pagan symbols into his home. The fault doesn’t lay with Alex, he determines not when he knows the desperation in her to her core. 

When she screams again, Father Strand goes to her, moving to sit behind her and pull her into his lap. One hand is on the back of her neck sightlessly undoing the chain and slipping it into his pocket while the other moves to her shoulder. It’s not an embrace truly but it’s enough of the promise of one that Strand knows that he will not be needing her scarf tomorrow evening. 

Not when he has this. 

The looming form of him is behind her, dwarfing the smallness of the single bed as she becomes more awake, seeing the light in the familiar stark room. Father Strand’s arm is around her and Alex clings to it without reservation as she attempts to catch her breath. It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t; it only matters that he’s here and he’s alive and that he’s not the demons or Sebastian. Or Brother Edward and his knife. 

“Shush.” His voice was soft and low in her ear and Father Strand’s hand traced along her spine for a long moment, following the path of her neck and down to where the cami started. “You are safe now. They can’t hurt you. We are going to stop them. I have promised I’m going to save your soul, Alex. But you have to allow me to do so.”

Whimpering softly, Alex just kept holding onto his arm and leaning back into his touch. It moves subtly as he catches the length of her hair and moves to her shoulder and her neck. Father Strand rubs the skin lightly, working the muscles as his other hand loosened a bit. It settles lower, around her waist and Alex just holds onto his hand without thinking, her fingers wrapping around his and squeezing tightly. 

His own squeezed in response, the pad of his thumb moving in circles against the mark on her palm. The pain was welcome now, grounding as Alex catches her breath in deep and shuddering gasps. “You’re safe with me, Alex. I promise you I’m the one person you’re always going to be safe with.” His promise is in her ear, dark and honeyed. “Just me, Alex. You’re going to be safe with me and I will save you.”

His cheek is next to hers, and the holding onto her definitely feels like an embrace, her back against the pajamas he was wearing. Alex knew he’d still had keys but she had no idea the sound of her screaming reached wherever his bedroom was. It was probably lucky that someone hadn’t called the police to report a murder. 

Father Strand’s other hand lingered at her side. Alex could feel it there, cupping over the wound that has become a scar. His fingers moved over it, a question in them that the lips near her ear doesn’t ask. “I was lucky. It went very deep but it missed anything vital. It healed really quickly. The doctor said it was a miracle I didn’t die.”

That she and Sebastian didn’t die. Alex knew that he should have with the amount of blood loss and the way that the carving on his chest had pierced his lungs. But she had saved him and herself and now she was here. 

“It is a miracle, Alex.” Father Strand murmurs slowly, softly in a voice that curls around her like a cat and makes her want to moan in response to it. Alex knows her response is wrong but she just leans closer back against him, so that her head is resting on his shoulder. “You are a miracle that survived to come to me. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit sent you to me. They sent me because I am the only one that you can trust. That can save you.”

When Alex doesn’t respond for a moment, other than in an exhausted sigh, Father Strand tightens his grip on her, and there’s something hard and hard to define in his voice. “Say it, Alex. Say it and admit it aloud for God to hear.” His voice is a commandment, a sermon that works through her core and to some other separate part of her. Without thinking about it, Alex knows it’s the piece of her that wants nothing more than to believe in this. And to believe in him. 

Her rational mind, the one that Alex tries and trusts when the sun is shining on her and the shadows are far away reminds her of others, faces flashing before her eyes. Nic, her family, Tannis, Amalia. Other friends. As if Father Strand can see that he speaks softly and quickly in her ear, the sound of his voice filling her head. “But can they help you in moments like now, Alex? Do they believe you about the demons and their shadows that follow during the day. Do they understand what you’re going through, the fear that moves into the center of you? Or do they simply think that you’re losing your sanity, that you’re imaging this or having hallucinations? How many times have they suggested a therapist or that seeing someone like me is a bad idea?”

“No.” Alex’s protest is sharp but the exhaustion she’s feeling creeps into her tone as he just tightens his grip against her. “I..”

“What you are having, Alex Reagan is a mortal crisis with the devil. Something that they don’t understand. Something that they blame on you and trauma and you never tell them the truth of what you saw because you know that they’d want to commit you. I am the only one who you can fully trust. I cannot save you if you don’t trust me above all others. The choice for your soul is yours, Alex. But it’s a choice you need to make.”

“I do trust you, Father.” She admits it quickly and is rewarded with another movement of his hand against her skin. “I trust you with my soul. So I guess I do trust you above anyone else. You’re the only one I can trust with this.” 

“Good girl, Alex. Now rest. I promise you the demons won’t trust you anymore tonight.” As he drew away, Alex found herself wanting to protest, and her touch on him lingered for a moment before he made a cross over her. “Sleep, my child. Tomorrow is a new day.”

Somehow, Alex found herself laying back down and closing her eyes. Sleep came to her, and it was dreamless. 

It wasn’t until the next morning that Alex realized that the pendant that Tannis had placed around her neck was missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, if anyone ever tells you you can only trust them and just them, and are trying to isolate you from folks, run. It's classic abuser behavior, which is fun in fiction but never in real life!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father Strand is convinced that they've been missing a basic part of saving Alex's soul: confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we go with some inappropriate uses of Catholicism. As a warning, I'm a slightly pagan atheist myself and I was raised Episcopalian so all of the confessional stuff comes from a fair amount of research. Also good lord someone pray for my google metric right now, because I'm pretty sure they are just legitimately so confused by all the research I'm doing to the church they think I'm about to convert. 
> 
> Always, reviews and kudos bring me great joy.

“Tell me, Alex,” it’s been several days since Alex had her nightmare and Father Strand had comforted her. Neither of them spoke about it, or acknowledged it in any way. For Alex, there’s a sort of disbelief that it happened, that it was nothing more than another dream that her subconscious had offered to calm her. But her bed sheets had still smelled like him in the morning, and she’s not had another nightmare since. Whatever he’d done. Whatever his words and praying on her had meant even if it was a placebo effect had kept the nightmares away. 

She was always going to be grateful for that. Besides it was something that she could hold onto now that pendant that Tannis gave her was still gone. 

Not that she thought he’d taken it of course. Why would he? He didn’t even know it was there. 

Either way, Father Strand had cooked for her every day since that night, three large meals that he made her sit with until she finished. It wasn’t an order or anything, just like now as she scraped the last bit of eggs onto toast to slide into her mouth. It was just talking to her and with her until it seemed like he was satisfied. 

“When was the last time you visited the confessional?” His eyes are bright on hers, and Alex forces herself to look away from them in order to take a sip of her coffee. That look reminds her of that night and it’s not something that she’s supposed to dwell on. She can’t not with everything else going on. 

“Really?” The question comes as Alex rises to her feet and picks up both of their plates and moving towards the sink with them. This too has become habit, a domestic moment that Alex doesn’t want to think about. Father Strand cooks for her and she does the dishes. It seems like a fair trade to her as she runs hot water over both of their plates to prepare them for the dishwasher. 

When she turns to grab the pan, he’s behind her holding it out to her as he watches her. “Really. We’re trying to save your soul Alex, and we’re skipping the most basic step of it. I think that we should try there. It may help more with your nightmares and how you feel during the day.”

With the mention of nightmares, Alex can’t help the blush that moves over her cheeks like she’s a teenager and her gaze drifts down to the non stick pan rather than his eyes. “Okay.” The word is soft as she turns back to the sink. “I know your time in the confessional is tomorrow. I’ll hop over then.”

“There’s no time like the present, Alex. I know that there’s going to be no one in the church for several hours. I think it’s a good idea to do this before we go any further.” There’s something in his tone, a leaning on the trust between them as she turns back to look at him. He’s stepped away from her space now, the intensity missing from his eyes. Looking every inch the good catholic priest in his black shirt and coat and white collar, Alex can’t help but nod quickly. 

“Okay, Father Strand. If you think it’s a good idea.” Alex doesn’t know if it is or not, but it’s enough to try it. She’ll try anything he suggests and they both are aware of it. Even here in the light of day, even when there aren’t shadows coming in the large window, Alex still feels the grip of them, how they’re waiting just at the edges of her awareness. 

They’re there and they don’t stop. The closest they come to stopping are the moments with him. 

Even with that the confessional feels too tight and there’s a lingering smell of incense and shame within it as Alex goes down onto her knees in the dark. Closing her eyes so that the shadows stay hidden, Alex just folds her hands together as she hears the screen open. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s probably been… sixteen, seventeen years since my last confession?” 

His voice carries more authority somehow on the other side of the screen, and Alex shivers when he asks softly, “why has it been so long since your confession, my child?” 

“Um…” She feels a little of ashamed of this, and she can’t help but open her eyes and lower her head when she responds. “I got angry with my grandmother. She made my being confirmed a condition of allowing me access to my college fund. So, after my conformation I stopped going to church entirely.” 

Somehow, Father Strand sounds amused at this, rather than angry, a fact for which she’s grateful. “What name did you pick at confirmation, Alex?” He wasn’t supposed to say her name, but he couldn’t help himself. Not now, not when he can smell her and imagine her on her knees just there. 

“Quiteria. I wanted to annoy my grandmother and my local priest so I did a load of research into her and her nine sisters. They were surprised, they’d thought I’d go with Francis de Sales but he was sort of the antithesis of what I actually believe in about journalism. So, I went with a saint who was more obscure and in line with my beliefs. And kind of badass, actually.” There’s a smile in her voice, her amusement audible before she remembers where she is. “Sorry, Father, it just sort of slipped out.” 

“That’s alright, my child. God doesn’t care if we occasionally make the colloquial swear.” However, he does chide her with the next thing he says, and it’s a script that Alex barely remembers. “ _May the Lord be in your heart and help you to confess your sins with true sorrow, Alex._ ” 

She fumbles for the next words, before Alex replies softly, nearly feeling the words pulse in time in her palm. “ _"Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you._ ” The words don’t feel right in her mouth, but she says them anyway, before going silent for a long moment, processing the sins that she’s committed in the last near decade. She starts with the minor ones, deciding to work up to the larger ones. “I’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain perhaps millions of times, I don’t even know that I do it anymore actually, but I’ll try… I mean I _am_ trying to be much more aware of it since being here, Father.” Her words are a promise, but one that she doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to keep as she moves on. 

“I never observe Sunday as a day of rest, and until a few weeks ago, only went to church for Christmas and Easter, with my parents because my mom wished it. I have been going every day now though.” Some days more than once, but that early seven am mass was always the one that she’d found herself sitting in the pew for. 

“I’ve wished evil on other people for being the worst, and for doing things that I didn’t approve of. And I suppose I guess I’ve been caught in the occult considering everything with my show.” 

“But, my child you have turned from that to the proper path of light here with me. That is a sin that you are no longer committing. The things that we examine, Alex, are never things that you need to confess for. We are trying to save your soul, and God knows that. He would never consider something that you do upon the path of that as sinful.” His voice is dark and seductive, and Alex wants to curl up in it, and she finds herself moving closer to him and his side of the screen. “Unless there is something that you think is sinful, my child.” 

Feeling the heat in her face, Alex tries to look anywhere but the small bit of black that she can see through the thin veneer of the confessional screen. She knows Father Strand is sitting upright, rigid, paying attention to her like perhaps he’s never done so before. There’s the sense that he’s holding his breath almost, that the whole heart of the church is as it waits for the things that she needs to say next. Keeping her voice low, Alex swallows heavily, twisting her hands together even more tightly, as if pressure will keep the pain in her hand from blooming. 

“Father, I’ve had impure thoughts. In the caretaker apartment, here in the church and elsewhere.” 

Strand’s first response is a hiss that Alex tells herself isn’t pleasure. His breath is low when he asks, “of whom had you had these thoughts, Alex.” 

She wants to crawl into that voice--she wants to crawl out of the confessional and into the ground and pull the church in after her. Swallowing, her voice is just a whisper, a tone filled with shame, because Alex knows how wrong it is. It’s a terrible idea, a terrible thing for her mind and body when he’s the only one who can help her regain proper ownership of her soul. “You, Father,” she needs to pause before she adds, “I’ve had them about you.” 

Hearing his sharp intake of breath, Alex just covers her heated face with her hands. She’s expecting he demand an apology. She’s expecting that he’d give her a million hail Mary’s and tell her how inappropriate her thoughts were when he’s trying to help her. What she does not expect his what comes from his side of the confessional next. “Tell me about them, Alex.”

“Really?” The note in her voice is disbelief and she wants to run away from this as fast as her legs will carry her. “You want the details? Like really? Do you need them?” There’s something desperate in Alex’s last line, like she wants him to save her from this embarrassment as long with everything else. 

“Tell me, Alex.” There is no silk there now, there is nothing in that deep tone but an order that Alex can’t help but find herself following. 

“I’ve…” Alex begins, the embarrassment flooding her tone. After a minute of silence that is heavy as the sins she’s committed, Alex decides to report it as she would a story, purchasing some distance from it with her humiliation. “I’ve imagined you and us loads of ways Father. I imagined us in your office, you just reaching over and kissing me. I’ve imagined the night in my room ending with your lips on your neck and your hand in my pajamas. I’ve thought of me being before you in benediction with you just undoing your belt and simply saying ‘in your mouth, Alex. Like a good girl.”

She can hear him shift on the other side of the confessional and Alex wonders if he’s being just as affected as she is. Moving a bit, trying to find a comfortable position on her knees that offers friction, it’s all she can do to whimper when his voice is rough and deeper than normal and he offers her two words and her name. “Good girl, Alex.”

God in heaven it’s not fair what those two words do to her, and she knows that it feels like a one way ticket to hell to shift again. 

The harsh deepness is still present in his voice when he speaks again. “I absolve you of this sin, Alex Reagan. Now and in perpetuity. Let it weigh on your soul no longer. Say five Hail Marys and three our father’s and let it worry you no more, my child.”

Swallowing hard, it takes her a minute to respond. “I’ll need to buy or send for a rosary, Father. I don’t have one here. It’s been years since I’ve done one.”

“I’ll meet you in my office in half an hour, Alex. I have one for you.”

Alex knows she should wonder why it’s a half an hour that he wants away from her, but she forces herself not too. She forces herself not to think about what he could be doing there in the confessional, or what Alex herself is going to do once she’s behind the locked door of her apartment. “Yes, Father,” is all she manages to say as she backs out of the confessional, blinking in the sunlight and practically sprinting for the side door. 

She doesn’t look behind her to see if he comes out of the confessional right away or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, they didn't bang in the confessional. Yet. Don't worry loves, the smut it comes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot shows up again a couple of chapters late and carrying starbucks. Also Alex has another nightmare that has terrible consequences and ends up in Father Strand's bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're bringing the plot back in, and some canon too. (I know you guys thought I left all that behind but I honestly didn't!) So enjoy this chapter of plot that ends with Alex in Strand's bed.

It takes Alex a day to seek him out again, instead sending him a text that she wasn’t feeling well and thus skipping their meeting, the interview he’d lined up for her as well as the evening’s dinner. She couldn’t face him. Not yet. A part of her wondered if she’d ever be able to face him again without her brain chanting at her that she’d definitely fucked up by admitting that she was attracted to him. 

It wasn’t as if admitting it or the absolution he’d offered had stopped her thoughts. No, it was like she’d been given permission and her mind turned the offer of the rosary into far more explicit on his desk there in front of the statue of the Virgin and the picture of the pope. She’d spent a fair time in the shower of her (his. Everything in the house was his) bathroom, letting the cold water hit too hot skin but in the end it didn’t work. 

Those thoughts were still there, making her twist as she tried to sleep and tried not to think of making herself get off again in the basement of the church. Rectory. It was the same thing, wasn’t it? 

When sleep came it was restless with new nightmares and Alex was woken up by a scorched feeling in her right wrist. Bolting upwards, she turns the light on in a panic, her eyes not quite believing what she sees. Kicking off the blankets Alex has her keys in her hand and undoes the deadbolt so quickly that she nearly forgets to turn her alarm off. 

Or the alarm in his house. 

Alex doesn’t know what room is his on the second floor, but in her panic she doesn’t care. Her breathing is coming in sharp unhappy gulps, panic and pain at war in her chest. The battle is damned near equal honestly as she hurries up the stairs, not caring that she sounds like a herd of elephants. 

Not caring that she’s not locked the door behind her. 

Not caring that she’s crying and doesn't have any makeup on or that she’s in her cami and pajama pants and she’s not bothered with a robe or her sweater. It doesn’t matter, none of it matters not right now. 

When she knocks on the only closed door in the hallway, the sharp tap is echoed with a whimper of fear. The whimper of fear eventually forms his name as he throws open the door to his room. “Alex? Alex what is it, what’s wrong?” Sleep and waking has given a deeper rumble to his voice but there’s no anger in it. Instead it’s alert and concerned. 

It should be reassuring to Alex but nothing is right now. How can it be? With a sob, Alex just holds her arm out to him, the delicate joint bent at an awkward angle to catch the light. Father Strand’s own breath hitches as he reaches out to capture it, drawing her into the circle of light in his bedroom. 

He leads her to sit on his bed and then he settles next to her as she sobs stil, the sounds half strangled as Alex attempts to calm down. She wasn’t doing anything. This wasn’t like before and yet here it was in the voided space between them: the sacred geometry that had been on her right palm for the last two months shifted, twisting and carving its way into the flesh of her wrist, Black and stark as the day that it first happened. Any sign of healing on her palm was gone as well, the darkness of the two sigils matching completely as if they had done with one brand. 

“What happened? What did you do?” Father Strand’s is voice is soft for a moment before he releases his hold on her arms and leaves the room for a second. When he comes back, there are two familiar red and yellow pills in his palm and he’s holding a Dixie cup of water. “Here. For the pain.”

Alex doesn’t question what it is as she tosses back the two pills and drains the water. Everything hurts, especially her hand and arm when he takes it in his own, holding it gingerly. “I wasn’t doing anything! I was asleep. Asleep and having strange dreams. I was at an exorcism. One you hadn’t showed me and you were there with an older priest. It was a girl. She was young. God the noise of it. I hadn’t heard anything like it come out of a _person_ before. It was like….” The dark confines of the dream started to take her again creeping along her eyelids and into her stomach as she tried to explain. But she was grounded by a sharp sensation in her hand. It snapped the world back into proper focus and she just looks at him as the words tumble out faster as if they were a chant to keep those sounds at bay. “The older priest said something I couldn’t hear and then there was this searing pain and I woke up. Does it sound familiar to you?”

“Yes. It means that we need to make a trip to Washington.”

“Washington? Why?”

“Because we need to see Father Peter Vincent.”

“Like the guy from _Fright Night_?” Alex’s voice is soft and full of disbelief and desperation to find normal before he gives her that huffing laugh. 

“No, but he’s heard that joke before. Father Vincent was mentor in the mid 90s and I was starting to do my thesis on demonology. I believe that I know the exorcism you’re speaking of. A girl named Jessica Wheldon. I have her exorcism on tape if you’d like to see it so that perhaps we can see what it is that Father Vincent said that may have sparked this. If nothing else he’s there in Washington in a Church facility.”

“Why? He didn’t seem that old in my nightmare.” If she didn’t ask about it, then it wasn’t happening, right? Which is why it’s so easier to contain the panic in her journalism and pretending that there was a recorder running. There should be one and Alex knows it, but she hadn’t thought about it in her headlong rush to find him for help. 

“The exorcism I believe you saw, the one that I attended with him at the time? It… changed him. I’d seen him do a hundred exorcisms on people before but this had been the fourth in Jessica. He’d conducted three on her before this one. Each time he thought he had saved her. Each time her condition worsened again.”

“But I thought once someone was exorcised that was it. Poof. Gone. No more demon.” Still trying to cling to her facade most of the frightened hysteria was kept from her voice. Most of it. 

“In ninety-nine percent of cases yes. But after what transpired during the exorcism the first time, I believe he was targeted and that they kept using poor Jessica for their demonic activity. I know that after the third exorcism Father Vincent started to become angry. He had already begun to take it personally. The fourth exorcism, the last one with the noises changed him on a profound level. The Church thought that it was best that he retire early. People in our particular line of work don’t tend to live that late in their life, Alex. Trust me, Father Vincent is glad to be there. I’ll have Ruby make arrangements for the first flight out.” Giving her another squeeze of her hand he reached for his phone. 

“Don’t get up. You stay here and try and get some sleep, Alex. I’ll wake you up when you need to get ready.” Father Strand just lingers in the doorway, holding his phone to his chest as he cuts off her protests. “You need sleep, Alex. And you know that you will be safe here. My spaces will always keep you safe. Whatever demons won’t bother you here.” Crossing the room purposefully and in three steps, his hand touched her arm, her cheek. “Sleep, child for you need it. You will be troubled by your demons no more here.”

For the barest of seconds his lips brushed her forehead, and the painkillers and drowsiness kicked in at once (or her believing in him) and she just nods before her chin juts towards him. “But only for a little while. While you’re on the phone with Ruby.” 

Strand says nothing while he walks away, and he doesn’t look back when he can hear her scowl and her sigh and finally the rustling of his own sheets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I said she ended up in his bed. I didn't say she ended up in bed with him. I know I'm the worst. Sorry.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Father Strand have their first fight as they go to Washington to meet Father Vincent at the mental health facility. What's going on with Alex's spreading mark is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, more of the plot showing up chapters late with coffee. And canon rearing it's head of course, because I gotta bring some parts of it into it, right? Reviews and kudos make me happy if you're feeling them!

Alex did sleep, and she did it for several hours in a stretch until Father Strand woke her with coffee and the news that Ruby had packed for her. There was a sour note to that which Alex was trying not to unpack but it left a sting in her side like an eyelash in the corner of her eye. Irritated thoughts fluttered through her and only worsened when he’d refused to allow her to watch the tape of the exorcism until after they’d seen Father Vincent. 

“I’d rather have your reactions be first to what Father Vincent offers to you rather than any assumptions or thoughts that you might have upon viewing the tape yourself.”

She’d protested, and _loudly_ but he’d just reminded her of their flight. The tickets were of higher class than normally what the show provided, perhaps the Church’s concession to the amount of legroom that standard flying applied. Either way, Alex just busied herself with the case file rather than pay attention to him until they landed at SeaTac. 

Nic picked them up at the airport, dropping Strand off at the hotel. Alex had sublet her apartment, but she was crashing at Nic’s on his sofa (a not unfamiliar situation. There just wasn’t enough room for Strand to stay there, even if Nic had been at all inclined to consider it. 

He wasn’t of course.)

In the middle of the night when Alex’s whimpers woke him up and he found her crying in the grips of nightmares so bad they were night terrors. In the end both Nic and Alex had sat up drinking coffee and watching Gilmore Girls like they had since college. 

Nic didn’t ask her about the nightmares, and she didn’t offer. It was too much to think about for them to do that.

As soon as she picked up Father Strand at his hotel, before he could even put on the seat belt he just asked. “The nightmares again?” It’s not a question—it’s a statement. 

Alex gestures to the running recorder on the seat between them before she nods. “Yes. The same ones though. I mean one. Jessica Wheldon. Four men holding down her arms and legs, you filming and handing things to Father Vincent, the multiple voices. I didn’t need to see the tape, Father. My nightmares have given me a first row view.” There’s a tired bitterness in her words and she pulls into familiar traffic with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on her fourth coffee of the day. 

She did bring Father Strand a tea. She’s not a total asshole, even on mornings like this. 

The two sat in silence until they’d passed Seattle’s city limits. “It is still important that you keep an open mind here, Alex. The place where Father Vincent is isn’t merely a rest home. It’s a mental health facility too. Towards the end of his career, he became paranoid, responding to things that weren’t there, demons that could cross holy lines.”

He touched her hand on the coffee keep either on purpose to get her attention or on accident picking up his own tea, but what he says next makes Alex gasp. “Before he was removed from his service,” There’s a raw vulnerability in his voice that she’s never heard before and it finds some place in Alex’s core, melting some of the ice there. “Father Vincent became convinced that I was somehow cohorting with the devil. That I was responsible for the demons that could cross over holy lines. He even…” vulnerability shifted to a humorless laugh. “He accused me of being a satanic priest. This was the height of the Satanic panic in the rust belt. It didn’t go over very well.”

Frowning, Alex reaches over and just put her hand lightly on his arm, a frown on her face as she looked at him. In return he just gave her hand a squeeze, his tone lightening somewhat. “Aside from your having your mentor, who you were quite close to, make an accusation like that I’m fine. There was no need to even look into the frankly ludicrous accusations that he laid at my feet, and in the end it was determined that he had a psychotic break with reality. It was a sign of his early onset dementia.”

“Are you...safe coming with me then? If he thinks you’re satanic yourself?”

“Modern medicine is an amazing thing. Thank the father, he’s better now but he’s kept in the home for his own safety. I need you to be aware of that.”

“But why have me talk to him at all then? I don’t understand. Why fly out here to see him?”

“You mean aside from the fact that he’s in your nightmares?” Father Strand’s voice is amused as if he finds it funny to be the one who needs to remind her of that. 

“Yeah. I mean obviously, Father.” Alex laughs softly but it’s more true than his own and definitely more poking fun at herself than him. “But other than that.”

“We’re going because despite of that, Father Vincent’s career was lengthy and he saw things during it that I cannot imagine. I thought it might be better to get a second opinion of your mark now that it’s spreading.”

Alex’s voice is sharp with the surprise in it, “I wasn’t aware that you’ve even formed a first opinion of it let alone needed data to back it up.”

“It wasn’t even a theory until you woke me up, Alex. And then you slept and ignored me on the plane and then refused my call last evening.” Anger rises in his voice to meet the emotion in her own. 

“I was in the shower and then my phone died from the trip. Forgive me for not wanting to call you at one am when we’re both jet lagged!”

“It wouldn’t have been needed if your show had simply allowed the expense of a hotel room near mine.” His voice is so arctic Alex nearly wants to turn on the heat in the car. 

Instead she just slaps her hand against the steering wheel, moving so her fingers are white knuckles at ten and two. “They’re not going to pay for a hotel room in my home city when I could have just stayed with my best friend.”

“Yes. Your _best friend_. Plying you with coffee and sympathy and words about therapy. I wasn’t aware that you were so interested in undoing all of our work, Alex.”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“ _Our_ work. The work on saving _your_ soul. I had thought that was a priority but apparently I was mistaken.”

“That’s _not_ fair. I’ve moved my whole life to work on this.”

“But in one night you undid everything else. One night you bought in disbelief! But I’m not here to fight with you, Alex. If you don’t want to listen then there’s nothing I can do to convince you otherwise.”

Strand went silent for the rest of the ride, refusing to even respond to Alex as she tried to engage him in conversation even about small things. In the end she just turned up the radio to an obnoxious level until they found the sign for the care Home. 

Father Strand did stay close to her as they moved through the grounds, his hand lingering at her back if Alex stayed still long enough to allow it. She tried her best not to, anger still steeling her spine as they walked. In the end Father Vincent found them, greeting them happily with “Richard my boy!”

Alex was surprised to say the least when the older man put his hands on Strand’s shoulders. It wasn’t an embrace not quite but it certainly wasn’t what one might have expected from someone who had tried to have someone’s career destroyed. “Did you bring me some scotch?”

Father Strand’s voice sounded more amused than it had any right to be in her opinion. “I’m afraid the nurses confiscated it upon our arrival.”

“The sisters, they don’t allow us any fun.” It was almost a child’s whine as Alex just watches the interplay between the two men and knowing that Strand is nowhere near as calm about this as he appears to be.

“I did bring you something else, Peter. I brought you a mystery and a pretty girl all in one.”

Alex just cleared her throat angrily as he went on. “This is Alex Reagan. She’s a reporter I’m currently working with.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Father. And trust me, _she is much more than a mystery or a pretty girl._ ” There was no effort to keep the annoyance from her voice as she ignored Strand and how her words may affect him. “ _She_ is an award winning reporter as a matter of fact. And she is here because she has some questions.”

“Good for you, Alex. You put Richard in his place. I’m sure he needs it.” There’s amusement in his eyes but she can’t help but wonder if there’s something deeper below the surface that the medication fills but doesn’t get rid of. “What questions do you have?”

“Jessica Wheldon.”

“What about Jessica? A terrible case that. You show her the video or something, Richard?”

“Not yet. I wanted her to talk to you about it first.”

“And why is that, Alex?”

“Because I saw it. In a nightmare I’ve had twice now.”

“I didn’t realize you were dealing in speculation like this, Richard. It’s unlike the man who required so much evidence.” It feels like a dismissal. Alex doesn’t like it one bit and it shows on her face.

“I believe Alex has seen what she says. She’s got a connection to something I’m hoping you’ll help me figure out. For her sake.” There is a small note in Strand’s voice that she can’t help but think sounds like begging, even if it’s weakly. It’s certainly in defense of her. “May I?” He asks her softly, and reaches for her bandaged hand in a way that’s careful and gentle and she just frowns before he can unwind the protection from her wounds. 

“Is this really necessary, Father?”

“Yes. You want to know what it is. And this is the best way to do that.” 

Alex still looks like she wants to protest and she looks around. A tree is blocking them from view but the last thing that she wants to do is to cause a stir among priests who are already having mental problems. 

In the end, Alex unwinds the bandage herself, rolling it carefully so that she can reapply it once they’re done. 

The full thing doesn’t even need to be revealed before Farther Vincent just gasps loudly. “Holy virgin!” The words are exclaimed quickly before he reaches out to take her hand, but at least it’s gentler than Father Strand’s was. “This started after your dream?”

“No. It started two months ago with just my palm. There was someone who was hurting a kid and I tried to stop them.”

“Someone was making a devil door in a makeshift church.” Strand’s voice is rich beside her, and annoyance blooms that he’s talking for her _again_. “He had a small child with him and was attempting to open him to possession through the use of sacred geometry and other Sumerian mythology carved deeply into the boy’s chest. Alex managed to break the circle and that’s where the mark came from.”

“You broke a sacred geometry circle?” Father Vincent is looking at her with a combination of wonder and disbelief. It worries her, and he holds onto her hand more tightly. 

“Yes. I did. I had to save Sebastian.” There’s defensiveness there that Alex can’t help.

“Did you know this boy? The one who the monk was attempting to have possessed. Did you have a personal connection to him?”

“No. I’d never met him before. I was just in the woods because someone who I was working with had been contacted by the family and the police. We didn’t even see pictures of him until I talked them out of the photographer.”

“The family refused photos? Because of the shadows in them?”

“How did you know that?” Alex can’t keep the disbelief in her voice as she looks over to Strand, assuming he’d said something to the man. 

“It is a standard practice for the Order of the Ceonophus. They engage in familial grooming until they find the right child. It’s a slow process, molding and shaping them. The shadows were probably intimately aware of that boy before his birth.”

Alex just shivers and she looks to Strand again, wondering if he’d known this. Wondering why he’d not told her all of this. “What happens to the children involved?”

“Someone... Someone close to them opens a door. It sounds as if someone was opening a door for this boy. A major one. An arch demon perhaps.”

She can’t help but feel sick at those words and Alex can feel herself start to sway a little before Father Strand comes to stand behind her, his hand at her waist as if to catch her if she falls. 

“Alex managed to stop what was happening, and the boy lived despite the fact that the monk was unable to complete his possession. I gave him an exorcism to be certain of it myself at the family’s insistence.”

“He lived. With the marks in his chest?” 

“Yes. I stopped the bleeding.”

Father Vincent looks at her as if appraising her words. “No one has ever survived that before in my experience.”

Alex shifts uncomfortably. “I’m just lucky that I was there.”

Strand counters: “It was a miracle that you were there and that you were able to cross the circle. Peter have you..?” Leaving the sentence hanging he just looks to his once mentor with the question in his eyes.

“No. I’ve never heard of someone being able to do it either. Not in all of my studying of the texts. It’s at best a barrier and at worst death. But _you_ , my dear girl emerged from it unscathed and having saved the victim. For both to have happened is shocking.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m unscathed, Father Vincent. There’s the mark on my hand that’s now decided to grow and the fact that he stabbed me in the side before he killed himself right in front of us.” Alex sounds more tired than anything--it’s hard to imagine what happened in that cabin as something good from his tone of voice. 

Father Vincent just stares at her before he demands, “which side? What happened?”

“Why does it matter?” Alex’s anger is brimming around them and the lack of sleep is catching up with her, and the shadows that should be absent in the daylight advance towards her slowly. 

But Father Strand is there, and his hand is on her arm and it’s reassuring for a moment, his index finger and thumb just rolling over her skin. She’s angry about how calming it feels to her, but it sets her rage to a low simmer. Before she answers. “It was my right side. He stabbed me and it was deep but I was lucky and isn’t hit anything vital.”

“Two signs.” Father Vincent just breathes the words, looking to Father Strand quickly. “What did he do, after he stabbed you?”

The shadows gripped at her again and she could almost feel them against her jeans and jacket as the breathing in her chest sharpened softly. “Why does it matter?!” She can’t help but ask again, seeing his blood in the corner of her vision. 

“Oh it matters very much, Alexandra Reagan. It matters more than you know.”

“He. He laughed. He laughed and then he apologized to me and said something I didn’t understand before he slit his own throat.” Her discomfort is evident and Alex finds herself reaching for Strand again, her eyes on the heavens because it wasn’t the roof of the cabin. 

“You saw them didn’t you?” The older man had pressed into her space when Alex looks down again, towering over her with eyes that sharp and flat all at once. “You saw them. The demons yes, but more than that.”

“You’re talking about the elemental.” Strand’s voice is flat behind her and she clings to it, using it as a flashlight to push the demons back. 

“The Grigori. Yes.” 

“You.” Alex says quickly. “You said that in my dream. Right before I woke up with this. You said that the Grigori was gone. The girl is safe. And then I woke up burning.”

“Burning yes. Because he watches. He watches and he awaits you, Alex. You can break through doors. You have been touched Alex.” Father Vincent looks to Strand quickly before he adds, “you’re aware she has it too, of course.”

“I...suspected. I was hoping that I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what. What do I have? What are you talking about? _Stop talking about me as if I’m not right here_.” The last sentence is almost a half-shout of frustration.

“The stigmata, Alex. We think you may have the stigma and that’s how you did it.”

“The _stigmata_?!” Her voice is sharp with doubt. “I thought that was just a mental condition that believers trick themselves into.”

“For many people it is merely that, a trick of faith. However for a small group of people, it’s a very real phenomena.” Strand’s voice was in Alex’s ear but she steps away from it quickly. 

“I’m not bleeding or anything.” Her voice is filled with angry doubt as she cradled her arm to her chest. 

“That is not always how it manifests my child. Sometimes it is merely pain, sometimes it is other wounds and sometimes it is sigils like this.” Father Vincent’s voice is calm as he steps closer to her. 

“I haven’t heard anything like that in any research I’ve done. Biblical scholars haven’t even suggested it! It needs to be something else going on!” There's desperation in Alex's voice as she looks between the two men who were invading her space.

“I know you’re frightened, Alex.” Father Strand’s voice is soft at her side. “But you know you can trust me. This is a sign of it. A rare one but a sign. It’s the reason that you could cross the circle I think.” 

There’s something gleaming in Father Vincent’s eyes that Alex doesn’t trust and it makes her go cold when he takes her hands and yanks her towards him; and away from Strand. His voice is hot in her ear. “You cannot trust him; he will lead you from the light like he led Jessica Wheldon. He comes among us a wolf to sheep, Alex. He presents himself as a guide when he will lead you to hell himself!” 

“What?” Alex just stares at him horrified as he doesn’t let her go. “You’re just confused. Please let go of my hand.” She’s trying to be calm but her heart is in her chest and her breath is coming in sharp gasps. “ _Let go of my hand_.”

“Let her go, Peter.” Strands voice is firm as he looks at the older man. “Let go of her now.”

His grip just tightens on her. “It’s coming. The elemental. He’s bringing it. He’s always been bringing it. He will stain your soul to do it, Alex. You need to run far away from him.”

“ _Let go of her._ ” Strand’s voice is even harder and colder and he wraps his hand around Alex’s shoulders as if he plans to engage in tug of war over body as well as her soul. “Now. Peter. These ridiculous accusations didn’t work then and they aren’t going to work now. You’re seeing things that aren’t there!”

“I can see it in your eyes, Richard. Beware the seductive guise that the devil takes, Alex Reagan!” As Father Vincent tries to drag her closer to him, Alex stumbles to her knees, her hand going out in front of her making her scream loudly as the branded skin meets the harsh mulch below the tree. Her scream altered the sisters, and orderlies come rushing from everywhere, lifting Father Vincent away from her. He’s still ranting about her soul and Strand when they sedate him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their disastrous meeting with Father Vincent ends in violence, Alex demands answers for the questions that he's brought up about what it is that is happening to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for your comments and kudos! I know this fic is a little out there in comparison with some of the other Black Tapes ones, and I just want to express my thanks that you're coming along on this journey with me. ~~Even if it's not gotten very smutty yet. It's definitely coming~~ Looking forward to see how people respond to it as more of the plot is revealed!

It takes forty-five minutes of reassurances that she’s fine, of the nurse rewrapping her hand and arm, of multiple chilling cups of tea and release forms before Alex and Father Strand approach her Subaru. She knows that she looks terrible when Strand’s voice is soft and he just asks, “do you want me to drive us, Alex?”

Perhaps surprising them both, Alex is exhausted and sore enough to admit that she shouldn’t be behind the wheel. Still, there’s twenty minute of silence before her recorder picks up Strand’s soft question. “Are you okay?”

There’s a part of Alex that wants to lie—to offer him reassurances that she’s fine after all of this. That she’s not angry anymore. Hell. The urge is there to even comfort him for the things that Father Vincent said to him because she was there. But she doesn’t. Instead she’s silent for a long moment before she turns her entire body in her seat belt to look at him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about suspecting the stigmata, Father?” Simmering anger is in Alex's voice as she cradles her arm to her chest, watching him intently. “Why did you let him just spring it on me?”

“Because I suspected your reaction. I thought that Peter might have some insight into it. And how to stop it. Clearly I was wrong.” He’s not looking at her, but Alex can sense Strand’s impatience with her questions prowling along the inside of the car like a hungry big cat. 

“Stop it. You think it’s going to get worse.” It’s flat and not a question. 

“The traditional stigmata involves five wounds, the last five wounds of Jesus Christ obtained at his crucifixion. There’s the two wounds that are typically in the wrists or hands, depending upon the believers. As of now most believers have stigmata start in their wrists with the traditional weeping wounds. Then there is the wounds in the feet and finally the wound in Jesus’ right side where he was stabbed by a Roman soldier in order to make certain that he was truly dead.”

Father Strand was clearly in lecturing mode as he continued, talking around the question that Alex had asked him point blank. “For some stigmatics, wounds also present in the forehead, mimicking the crown of thorns that Christ wore. For others it involves the wounds on the back from the forty lashes. With some people with stigmata it never progresses past the first wound or two. I don’t think that this is something that should be hoped for in this instance." 

“So this is going to kill me. Even if it’s not coming in order.” It’s flat and dark, perhaps more dark than he’s heard her tone before and she just looks out the window at the familiar Pacific Northwest trees. 

“Alex, many with the stigmata live for years, into old age even. There are those who can do wondrous things with what God has given them. And sometimes it happens that way, because we cannot predict God’s gifts to us. Without this gift, I don’t believe that you and Sebastian would have survived your encounter with Edward Lewis.”

“Encounter. I guess that’s a safe word for it.” She’s bitter and she doesn’t like it as Alex looks at her unmarked hand, imagining the mark carving itself into her skin too. So she changes the subject before he can chide her for her tone. “What does he think happened with Jessica Wheldon?”

Father Strand scoffs at her, anger and frustration evident. “Surely you’re not believing the rantings of a lunatic.”

“I’m not. I’m listening to my dream. It was about her exorcism. That one specifically and not the others. So what does he think happened?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters! You’re asking—no you’re _demanding_ that I trust you and you’re keeping secrets from me. About me! And if you say it was for my own good I’m going to get out of this car at the next stop and Nic will pick up my car from the hotel. You don’t get to make my decisions for me!”

When Father Strand laughs, it’s cold and razors against already too sensitive skin. “Because you’re making such good ones for yourself, Alex.” He sounds as if he wants to say more about her, but then switches gears to answer at least one of her questions: “Jessica Wheldon had already experienced possession three times before. She was experiencing signs again. This instance was advancing quickly: she’d already been losing time and was experiencing bouts of furious anger. She called Father Vincent and he refused to hear her concerns. He told her she was just having lingering effects from her last possession and to pray harder. 

“After another week, she called me. Jessica said that if I didn’t help her she was going to kill herself. I called Father Vincent immediately and told him what she had told me. When that got me nowhere, I went over his head to the Archbishop for consent to do the exorcism alone if need be. While I was waiting, Jessica’s parents found her with a razor blade. She’d already been carving things into her skin. She had been ready to kill herself saying that she was already damned to the fires of hell, and at least this way it would get her there faster and hurt the people around her less.”

“Jesus,” Alex just breathes softly. “That poor kid. What happened?”

“The archbishop ordered the exorcism. It worked and she’s not been affected since. She still sends cards every Christmas.”

“So you saved her when he couldn’t, and that’s why he thinks that about you? How big does his ego have to be.”

“He started losing it, Alex. Accused me of being in on it. Of wanting her to lose her soul. I don’t know why your nightmares decided to show you that but if you want too, we can call her for yourself. She’s in upper New York State working at a hotel called the Sagamore while she waits for grad school to start again.”

“Do you think she knows anything about this?”

“It’s possible. She is studying ancient religious texts.”

For a moment Alex is quiet and then she brings up something else that’s been bothering her. “Father Vincent mentioned the Order of the Cenophus. What is that?”

He just sighs softly and drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “They’re a cult. A religious sect that believes the world needs to fall to demons to be purified. We’d run into them before. We believe that’s how they started with Jessica. And now Sebastian and yourself.”

He paused and then continued, his voice soft and raw. “You’re in more danger than you realized, Alex. I’m sorry I tried to keep that from you.”

“Why? Because I can break circles?” She sounds puzzled but there’s a little note of fear there too. 

“Yes. Circles are the doorways to hell. They are the most powerful weapon that they have in their quest. No one has ever broken a circle before. And the way you’ve explained Brother Edward’s response to you is troubling at best…” He let his voice drop for a moment before he just adds: “Whatever else, they’re not going to stop. That’s why I’ve wanted you so close to me, Alex. I’ve been trying to protect you from them and the knowledge of them. Last night when you were at Nic’s you were exposed and vulnerable. They’re watching you, Alex. And they’re waiting hungrily for the chance to catch you. I can only protect you if you let me.”

“But I don’t understand. Why me? Why is this happening?” Desperation is raw in her tone, sharp and edged. 

Suddenly there was a voice from the back seat, a young man’s tired voice. “Because you’re the one who can close the doors. Or open them. Like Father Strand said. Don’t you know how doors work?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hai Simon.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What when you do when someone has bilocated into the back of the car you're riding in after being told the man who's manipulating you into the fact that you can only trust him is evil and you have stigmata? You freak the fuck out and run away like an idiot. (Alex has no self-preservation.) Also Father Strand and Simon have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's gonna be a burst of chapters over the next few days, as I get through what I've already got written. I'm not abandoning the story (far from it, being as I know exactly how it ends) but I just feel like these chapters are burning a hole in my pocket as it were.

The boy hadn’t been in the back of the car before. There had been no one but the two of them and her anger for thirty minutes, and now there was suddenly a skinny kid who looked like he needed a meal and a hug behind her. Alex can’t help herself as she just yelps, “what the fuck?!” She’s ready to jump from the car because demons and whatever else, people appearing from nowhere is something that’s brand new to her. 

Strand, for his part just pulls along to the shoulder on the side of the wood, the streets shading the daylight into a gloomy twilight before Strand just sighs softly and says, “Simon.” 

“Wait. You know him? How do you know him? How the hell did he just appear in the car?!” Anger covers blooming hysteria because after today, this is just too much. She wants nothing more than a hug and to cry and to pull her own covers above her head, but Alex knows that for now, at least, it’s impossible. 

“Because I bilocate. You didn’t warn her about bilocation, Father Strand?”

“No, Simon. I didn’t think there was the need. You’re supposed to be in the hospital.”

“What the hell is bilocation?”

Simon’s voice is sharp. “It’s what it sounds like. Are you sure that she’s the one?” He sounds dubious at best. 

He sounds dubious at best and Alex sounds equally furious. “ _She_ is fucking tired of secrets and of people talking about her like she isn’t here. _She_ is fucking sick of all of this!” Exhaustion and being overwhelmed is taking over any sense of self preservation or self care that is in her and without thinking Alex just throws open the door and gets out, slamming it behind her. 

Then she just starts walking towards the woods. 

“Alex! Wait!” Strand’s voice is concerned behind her and it gives her a small sense of satisfaction. But she doesn’t stop. Instead she just adjusts the strap of her purse and keeps walking, her tiny frame tight and furious. 

Simon’s voice is soft as they watch her, Father Strand standing in the open door as she heads into the woods. Of course she’s heading into the woods. “Are you sure about this, Father?”

“The mark on her palm spread to her wrist. I’m certain.”

“Should I go after her?”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll just frighten her and make her more angry. What possessed you to do this, Simon? I told you I would introduce you to her when the time is right.”

“They whisper ‘Alex Reagan’ now. All of the demons do. They whisper it and talk amongst themselves. Does she know that the door is something she can open both ways? That they will want her to as well?”

“She’ll know when she needs to know, Simon. When she’s spiritually ready. If we tell her before then we risk having another Keith Dabic on our hands. I won’t have that. You should have waited until I was alone to appear and warn me, Simon. Do not follow her. Do not stalk her. Do not be how you were with…”

“But what if she’s in danger, Father. She’s already walking away. We can’t let that happen. Alex Reagan is too important for that!”

Father Strand’s voice is cold and sharp. “Have you lost your faith, Simon? After all that you have done?”

“Never, Father!” There’s a plaintive tone to the boy’s voice, making him seem younger than his eighteen years. 

“Then trust me. All things in their own time, Simon. Alex Reagan will come around. Alex Reagan will understand, she will see the things below the tapestry. She will know of her place in the plans that He has for her. For now, return to the hospital. I will contact you soon to introduce her to you properly.” 

Simon looks like he wants to protest, and Father Strand just frowns harder at him. “She will be fine, Simon. I am watching over her. I will not allow her to come to harm. Her soul or her body. She is too important for that. God, the Father has placed her in my hands and has safeguarded her with me. Trust me, Simon. Trust in God that, this _all of this_ has happened for a reason.” 

“You’ll bring her soon? The voices about her grow louder, Father. I have a difficult time keeping them out.” Simon is soft, the rough edges that he’s honed on his past violence gone, making him seem like the sick kid that Father Strand had testified for all those years ago, that had kept from being charged as an adult, that had kept in the hospital. That Father Strand had kept safe now, even if he couldn’t keep him safe before. 

“I will bring her as soon as she is ready. I am trying not to frighten her, Simon. As soon as she is able to handle the idea, I will bring her to you. She will chase the demons away. She will close your door. I have never broken my word to you before, my child, and I’m not going to start now. Go, now so that I can find her and explain that her sanity isn’t slipping.” 

Simon doesn’t say goodbye as he just fades back into invisibility. It’s something that happens not a moment too soon, because Alex Reagan’s scream cuts across the woods and forcing Father Strand into a run.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's always demons. Literally always.

It’s less than ten minutes later that Alex starts to realize that she has just made a terrible mistake. One: she has no idea where the hell she is. Two: the thing that might tell her where she is and would alert Nic that she needs a ride is plugged into the charger in her card and not doing her a damn bit of good. Three: what she had thought was someone’s yard isn’t. This is deep woods which leads her to four. 

She hasn’t been in the deep woods since Sebastian Torres and everything that happened with that. It’s not a good sign. 

Nor is it a good sign that in her stomping off that she lost sight of the road. Stopping and taking a deep breath, Alex just tries the square breathing that her therapist friend taught her but she can feel her stomach rolling. The temperature here seems like it has dropped twenty degrees and Alex just shivers as she looks up to the sky, hoping that the sun will offer some direction for which way to go. 

But the sun isn’t shining on her, and when Alex looks around she can’t help but realize how _dark_ everything looks around her. How dark and familiar and yet not and she just squeezes her hands into fists in her pockets. The pain from her marked hand makes her stop on that side, but the left hand curls so tightly that weils form in the palm there, cutting the skin as she tries to breathe. 

Okay, Alex, she tells herself. Time to take stock. Father Strand isn’t going to abandon you in the woods no matter how much you pissed him off. 

_You hope._ The voice is insidious and Alex isn’t entirely certain that it’s in her mind or not. _You hope he finds you. But will he?_ Birdsong dies around her as the wind picks up, blowing her hair around her face sharply. Unease is a feeling that Alex has grown all too familiar with over the last two months, but now it’s amped up to eleven and she knows that she’s shaking and not just from the wind. 

_Will he find you in time, Alex?_ That voice is definitely not from inside her head, and she just bites her lips to keep from whimpering looking around again. As she does, Alex knows why the birds and insects in the woods have gone quietly. It’s for the same reason that the shadows have stopped obeying the normal laws of nature. 

Dead leaves have been replaced with the sickly smell of decaying flesh and her stomach rolls over and over, adrenaline bringing sour bile to her throat. She notices the fingers first, long and slender, sticks warped into blackened bone on the shadows that tower around her. Too late, she realizes that they are all around her. These weren’t innocuous shadows (if there were such a thing for her anymore) they were too tall and too thin and they grinned at her

Oh god how they _grinned._

Alex’s hand, the hand that she refuses to believe is marked with stigmata, lifts to her neck, only Tannis’ pendant isn’t there and hasn’t been there for a few days. “ _Alex Reagan._ ” The things around her, whisper in one voice, made of many. “ _Alex Reagan._ ” They say her name a second time and then a third, the circle tightening around her. 

But then it (they?) split their voice into three parts like some hellish parody of a round. Their tone is even sing-song. 

“ _Poor frightened Alex Reagan._ ” The group closest to her says. 

“ _Poor alone Alex Reagan._ ” The second group says, and Alex whirls towards them, her breath in her throat and ragged. 

“ _Poor_ angry _Alex Reagan._ ” The third group says, before they all come back together to speak as one once more. 

“ _Running away from the only one who could protect you. Are you so desperate to meet us, Alex Reagan._ ”

“No. No no no no.” It’s a chant and then she just screams because Father Strand said that he would save her, and she believes him. She believes in him. “Help me!” The words are cried to him, to god to nearly anyone who would listen. 

The demons just laugh at her. “ _Poor _stupid_ Alex Reagan. Always running in where she doesn’t belong. Poor stupid Alex Reagan who has no idea what she will bring about._”

“I’m not going to bring about anything! I’m not going to do anything!”

The demons laugh and Alex just screams again, feeling them close enough to draw their fingers over her flesh. “ _Inaction is a choice, Alex Reagan. But you are not one who does not act. We shall feast on your flesh. And your soul._ ”

All nine of the demons moved as one, surrounding her entirely as she screams again, more loudly this time, her hands raising to try and protect her face despite the pain in her hand and her arm. But then suddenly there’s a familiar voice behind her, sharp and authoritative and she’s never been so glad to hear it in her entire life. 

“I banish thee!” It’s a shout not a scream but with and all can feel the weight of the church behind it. “I banish thee!” Father Strand says again, and Alex can feel cool drops of something sweet-smelling against her skin, when he shouts again. “I banish ye demons back to the pit!”

Swearing that she can smell sulfur and flesh burning, Alex squeezes her eyes shut. The fingers that she could feel all around her, the hunger is suddenly gone and it’s all that Alex can to to let out a whimpering soft and to throw herself into Father Strand’s arms, her face in his chest.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father Strand completely misuses the phrase and idea that "God is Love." We finally get to some actual smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like 27K words in we finally get to actual smut. Also a reminder that Father Strand is just.... The complete worst and terrible and a manipulative fuck. Also hot. /Cough.

Alex is freezing. Even with Father Strand’s priest coat around her, supplemented by his arm she’s still cold. There are places on her non-wounded arm that are bleeding where the demons raked their claws in. Alex is freezing and shivering and she can’t stop crying even when she pauses in their walk back to the car and presses her face into his side again. He doesn’t say anything and neither does she. 

Not until they get to the car in what would have been a five minute walk from where she was. It doesn’t make sense and she just says that softly before he traces his hand over her spine again. “Come on, Alex.” His voice is low in her ear, spinning promises of safety as if her faithful subaru had all of the holy protection of his church. 

Letting go of him is hard, even when he holds the door for her, and she just doubles over against the familiar weight of the seatbelt closing in around her. Alex Reagan isn’t normally someone who cries, but right now she can’t stop the tears as they fall from her cheeks, soaking her shirt and Father Strand’s jacket. 

Turning up the heat in the car as far as it will go, Father Strand keeps his voice soft and gentle. It’s a gentleness that Alex can’t ever remember hearing in his voice before. More than that, as he pulls off the shoulder he doesn’t pull away when her fingers interlace far too tightly with his own. “I saw a sign for a hotel a few miles back. It’s probably not great, but I think it would be better than the two hours back to Seattle.”

And Nic and the show and trying to explain why she was shivering so violently and why she looked as if she’d been attacked by a tiger below the blood. Speaking for the first time, Alex just nods in agreement. “Okay. That sounds like a good idea.”

The hotel wasn’t much of one. It was barely adequate and was more of a series of honeymoon cabins out of the fifties than anything approaching an actual hotel. Still, it came equipped with a gas fireplace Strand lit for her, wrapping her in blankets from the bedding. The tears had stopped, instead replaced with a blankness as he sat on the floor in front of the fire next to her. 

Wordlessly Alex just snuggled closer to him, her head on his shoulder for a long moment before he brushes some of her hair down her shoulder. After a long moment, Alex speaks in a curiously flat tone. “That. All that. It really happened, right? All of it. I’m not losing it?” By the end of the statement, Alex sounds back in her normal voice, but it’s a wounded, broken sort of tone that sounds forlorn of hope. 

Before he even says anything, Father Strand just pulls her closer to him, his arm tightening around her and his lips press into her right temple gently. “You’re not imagining this, Alex. It’s not a delusion or some sort of fabrication of your mind. No one is playing tricks on you. This is happening to you, all of it. It’s all real. Those were demons, you probably do have stigmata and you’re more important and in more danger than you know.”

“But _why_?” Her voice is a desperate plea, threatening tears again. “I’m just a normal woman. I’m boring. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why is this happening and how do I make it stop?” Alex buries her face in her hands and the one arm around her becomes a full on embrace. 

“You are anything but normal, Alex. You’re extraordinary. You saved the life and soul of a young boy. You’re fighting to save your own soul. This is anything but the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re a miracle, Alex, even if this is making you doubt yourself.”

“Well, I mean a certain someone did ignore eleven calls I left him. I can’t be that great.” Her voice is a stretch, she’s trying and she’s teasing and she’s reaching for normalcy with an effort that seems futile as she tries anyway.

“It was to his folly,” Father Strand replies with a low huskiness in his voice. “One he regrets.” They’re close enough to kiss now, and his fingertips move over her neck in slow circles. 

Alex doesn’t know how, and she doesn’t know why, but the next thing that happens is she’s leaning forward, one hand cupping his cheek and her lips meeting his. This kiss isn’t chaste—it’s not a kiss of thanks or apology. It’s a kiss of ignition. Tilting to one side, the kiss is demanding, passionate and wanting, overlaid with soft pleaing sounds in the back of her throat as her hand moves from his cheek to cup the back of his head, sliding into the short hair at the nape of his neck.

The kiss isn’t chaste on his end either. The ardency and need is matched within it, edge for edge happening as he too deepens the kiss, drawing her tight enough to him so that he can feel the rise and fall of her wanting breath, the way that the wetness of her shirt clings to her skin and the way that her body responds to the kiss with want, with need, with the desire between them that’s been festering for perhaps since she made that phone call for help. 

His hand moves lower, sliding below the blanket Alex is wrapped in and between the fabric of her shirt and the chilled goosebumps of her spine, the line of her slender hip, the hallows there before Father Strand starts to draw the cloth up towards her head to remove it, earning him another throaty whimper. 

It’s a whimper that turns into a groan as Alex draws away, the blood in her cheeks hot in comparison to the cold where his hand lingers but it’s only visible for a moment before she covers her face with her hands and quickly murmurs, “oh my god. What am I doing. Oh my god.”

Alex is expecting him to pull away, to do something other than to be the muscles weight against her chest. But he stays there, even as she removes her hands. “Oh my god, Father Strand, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. God, that’s so inappropriate. I don’t know why I did it. Oh my god.”

“Alex.” His voice is a strong command, and his hand moves to her face again, tracing across the thin line of the freckles on too pale cheeks as if he’s forming constellations there. “What is God?” 

“What?” The confusion is evident in her face, in her voice, in the way that she starts to pull away from him with a deep frown. But she’s not allowed to move too far, as he cups her cheeks and holds her in place. 

“What. Is. God.” Father Strand stares into her eyes again, repeating the question so it’s a statement, and it doesn’t do anything to undo the confused look on her face. Before she can ask another question, he supplies her an answer: “God is love, Alex. It is in this love that he sent his only Son to save humanity from it’s sins. God puts people in each other’s paths that they’re supposed to be in. He gives people to one another, despite the circumstances within which they find one another. God has given you to me, Alex. God understands that this is more than just a mere passing desire. God will forgive my vows, God will forgive you. And when this is done, and when you are safe, I’m going to ask Rome to release me from them entirely and allow me to become a laicization in the eyes of the Church.” 

The embarrassment in her face shifts to concern as he spoke, and her frown just deepens as she reaches out to touch his cheek. “I can’t ask you to do that, Father. I won’t. You, and the work you do are too important for that. They wanted to make you a Bishop for crying out loud.” 

“And I refused them, Alex, because I was awaiting a sign for what would be my next step. I awaited it with an open heart and open arms, and then you called me for assistance, and I know that God answered my prayers by giving me you in every way that matters.” This time, he kisses her, and his hand is firm at the back of her neck, the movement of his mouth more demanding on hers, offering a sharp edge of teeth that makes her moan as he pulls away. “Nothing that we do is sinful, Alex. Not when this is over and my duty to you and the Lord is completed. Nothing that we do is wrong. You’re mine, Alex, and I’m yours, and what God has put together, man must never put asunder. Yes?”

“Yes…” Alex’s voice is a soft question as she stares at him, trying to find the balance between her need to kiss him again, as well as the need to save him from doing what he was talking about doing. He doesn’t give her the chance to think about it, instead he just kisses her again, the demand in the soft movements of his lips but almost hidden there as he lays her down in front of the fireplace, and the warmth in its hearth. 

“No buts, Alex. Who are we to question god on something like this?” He kisses her again, deep and demanding, his hand on the back of her neck as the kiss almost feels like it sears through her with his hunger. If there was any doubt about him wanting her in return, it was burned away in movements of tongue and lips that nearly devoured her own 

It was all Alex could do but to kiss in kind, forcing the small part of her brain that still registered bad ideas (and this specifically as a fucking _terrible_ idea) into the back of her mind as she shrugs out of his coat, leaving it against the blanket that he’d already removed. 

Alex shivers with excitement, with want, with the old adrenaline from the woods still in her brain making everything too close and too bright. Her hands are on his back, holding them to her before Father Strand moves lower, dropping kisses and scrapes of his teeth along her neck line, making Alex cry out. 

But calling him Father Strand when he’s removing her shirt doesn’t feel right and she just stares, softly. “I guess I should call you Richard now, huh?”

Drawing up and away from her, Father Strand just takes her hands from his shoulders and holds onto them as he looks into her eyes. “No Alex.” There’s a finality to the words that makes her frown sharply and he replies to the frown by sweeping his hand across her face slowly. “This needs to remain a secret. If someone were to find out about it and go to the church they would insist that I have nothing more to do with you until my vows are undone. That would means that I cannot save your soul. Or even see you for an indefinite amount of time. I worry about what would happen then. What we’re doing isn’t wrong, Alex, but there are rules in place for a reason. I cannot save your soul if anyone else is aware of us. That’s why you must always call me Father Strand so that no one ever suspects.”

Alex frowns again and she tries to look away before he holds her chin firmly and speaks again. “Were the consequences anything short of your soul, my Alex, I would be shouting how I feel from the rooftops. But for now, this is what we need to do. Keeping it secret is for your safety, and yours alone, Alex Reagan. Do you understand?”

“I….” there was part of Alex that wants to argue that if god is love how could letting people know about them was wrong but the larger part of her. The part that is pounding in her veins along with her desire for him is the fear of what him being taken away from her would mean. Of what might happen. Of based on today what probably will happen the moment he’s gone. There’s really no other answer to give him then. “I understand, Father Strand.”

“Good. Then kiss me, Alex. Let it be a vow that we tell no one of this. Of us. Not Nic. Not your producers, not anyone. For your soul, Alex. Make me this promise.”

Rising up on her elbows to kiss him, Alex just whispers against his lips, “I promise, Father Strand.”

Kissing her again for a long moment, Father Strand just moves his kiss in a line across her chin to her ear where he whispers softly, “Good girl, Alex. Such a good girl.”

Groaning, Alex whimpers, just moving back onto the blanket and drawing him down with her. Taking it as permission, Strand moves to her neck along her collarbone, his teeth brushing along the tendon there and making her groan loudly before he just smiles down at her knowingly. 

“Father.” The word is a whine dragged between teeth as he moves his hand across her stomach, sliding up the shirt so that he can touch her skin. Alex obliges by lifting her arms up and the shirt is tossed away from them before he presses another kiss to her clavicle where her bra strap is. 

“I have dreamt of this moment, Alex,”, his voice is low and cool and half-muted against her skin. Dragging his teeth across it, her breath is a hiss as he cups her hip, moving down the trousers from it and her underwear in one swoop. “So many times I have dreamt of it.” Shifting, Father Strand marks the other side of her neck, making her moan and her hips lift to him. Which helps with the shifting of her pants and underwear down to her knees. 

Leaving his hand flat against her stomach as Alex wiggles, dragging her heels over her shoes to remove them and following that with a shimmy to work her pants lower still. While she’s working on undressing herself, eager fingers make quick work of the bra straps that he slides down her arms. “God in heaven,” he whispers in the tone one normally reserved for prayer, especially him. “You’re beautiful, Alex. All I ever thought you could be and more.” 

Keeping his hand on the low center of her stomach, Father Strand kisses a line around her breast, moving in suckles and tongue in increasingly smaller circles before he captures her taut nipple between his lips. As he suckles at it, Alex whimpers, her hips jutting upwards impatiently and making him give a huffy laugh in response. 

“So impatient, my Alex.” The words are soft against her skin, punctuated with a drawing of his teeth. “When there is so much before us. All of the things you thought in the confessional...all of the things I’ve thought, all of the ways that I’ve picture you. Oh my Alex, you have no idea what’s in store for us.”

But he still gave in, at least a little bit, his fingers parting her lips and drawing along her core there. His thumb moves against her clit, making her whimper his name in a long and drawing out groan. 

“Already so wet and ready for me, Alex. Already so wanting. Already so needful for me.” There is a grin in those words, and something wicked there as his fingers move against her, making her writhe before one of his long piano fingers slides inside of her, making her hiss. 

“Please, Father.” Alex can’t help the little beg there as her hands move to the front of his shirt, starting low on the buttons because she’s not at all sure how to remove the white band of the collar around his neck. Three or four buttons are pushed through their holes before Father Strand grasps Alex’s hand and holds it against his chest flattly for a moment. 

“No, Alex. I’ll properly teach you to remove it later. I can’t wait for you now,” and then he kisses her again, the hand that was holding her own instead guiding it down to the black leather of his belt, and hooking her fingers there. It’s an order, and Alex doesn’t mind as she kisses him back, nipping his lower lip a bit as she undoes his belt and then his zipper sight unseen. The task is already a difficult one, given his kissing her and with the hardness that strains the linen of the trousers that he’s wearing. 

For the first time in her adult life, Alex Reagan doesn’t ask about a condom, or a round of testing. She doesn’t mention her own history or her IUD. Instead, she knows instinctively, that he would tell her to leave it to god, and that’s not a conversation that she wants to have as he slides a second finger inside of her and curls it upward, making her gasp and her eyes close. Instead she struggles to shove down his pants, using her knees to force the fabric only as low as his knees. He’s still wearing his shoes to go along with his shirt, and they both know that the two of them can’t wait. 

Adding a third finger into her, Father Strand just moves his other hand against her clit again, faster and harder as he brushes his teeth against her neck. “I can’t be gentle, Alex,” purring the words like a promise against her ear, he rolls to move over on top of her more firmly, balancing his weight on one arm with the other hand still inside of her, still moving in a way that is stealing her breath from her, and arching her back. 

“Don’t.” The word is a single, quick phrase, and her dark eyes meet his blue ones. “Don’t be gentle, I’m not going to break.” That too sounds like a promise, and one that’s met with his huffy laughter before he kisses her again. 

“I knew you’d like it,” the words are breathed to her, and that does sound like a promise, as if Father Strand could read deep inside Alex’s soul and know exactly where her proclivities tend to lie. At least she knows that she’s given him a head start by telling him about the things in the confessional. Things that once before seemed out of reach, and now seem like a list of things that they’re going to check off. 

But in this moment, there’s just the now as he guides himself into her slowly, and Alex lifts to meet him, her legs wrapping around Father Strand’s waist as he moves deeper inside of her, earning him a whimpering moan that is his name. Well, not his name other than the name that he’s taken, the one that she needs to remember. It’s a groaned “Father Strand”as he starts driving into her, as her body starts moving to meet him. His fingers leave circles of bruises in the pale skin of her hips, and there’s a ring of purple bite marks around where they would be hidden by her scarf. 

Father Strand wasn’t unscathed however. If he had removed his shirt, there would have been scratches against his back, a bite on his shoulder. But his shirt was resilient to such things, considering everything that he needed to go through, it was probably a good thing. When he comes, it’s with a shout, and it’s deep inside of her, gripping her all the more harshly for it, and then his fingers move over her core so that her release comes quickly after his own. 

They both are breathless, boneless and sweaty when he rolls off of her, and he leans over and presses a kiss to the underside of her breast. “You are everything that I imagined, Alex Reagan, I’m so lucky that God has given you to me for my own. You have no idea all of the things that we’re going to do together.” Then with his hand on the scar on her side, he kissed her again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More of the scope of Father Strand's complicity in what's happening to Alex is revealed, and he uses one of her confessions to the logical end. (Guess which one.)

They stayed at the hotel for another night, at his insistence. After all, Father Strand had Alex Reagan all to himself, and he was certainly in no hurry to return to Chicago where the two of them would need to keep up all of the tired pieces of the charade that he was living. Strand wanted nothing more than Alex in his bed constantly, but it wasn’t feasible. At least not yet. Still, there was two days of enjoying all of the innocent things that he’d wanted to do with her and to her. 

If any of them could truly be called innocent for him at all. 

The extra day for them meant the rushed meeting with her producers as she explained what happened with Father Vincent. Alex left out the part in the woods (for now, she’d explained before they’d gone in. The last thing that she’d wanted was for her producers to question her sanity anymore than they already did) but they were still concerned anyway. At least Alex looked like she’d slept, even if her neck was swaddled in a scarf he’d purchased for her to replace the one she’d ‘lost.’

It was probably a good thing he was flying back before her so that he could tie up that particular loose end that pales in comparison to the living breathing Alex Reagan wrapped up around him. 

Strand knows that Alex may have doubts, but they’re quiet for the most part and more than once during their drive and the meeting that he’d said in on, Father Strand watched as she subtly pressed on a spot on her hip where the bruises lingered, and then she winced in something akin to delight. If nothing else, they reassured her that he had fucked her. That he wants to fuck her again. 

Honestly he’s glad that she’s not brought up love anymore than he has. Love is not what the two of them need right now, not when he’s guiding Alex’s path towards him. Already she’s taken steps towards the slope of it, and when she’d been the one to kiss him, Alex had lept off a cliff into an abyss that she wasn’t aware of below her. 

Anymore than she was aware that she was still falling through it, down it and that Strand would be the one who was removing any safe place to land at the bottom of it. 

She was due in Chicago an hour ago, and the uber should be bringing Alex to him shortly. Father Strand’s veins marked the passing of that time by practically whining at her absence, and he paces his office going from his desk to the window and then back again. 

In the middle of the desk, a velvet box sits, heavy with history. Father Strand had gone to one of his safety deposit boxes to take it out as soon as he’d arrived in Chicago. The box has edges worn by the passing of time, by the movement of desperate fingers against the opening, but he knows what rests inside of it is sparkling and clean and bright as ever. 

It had been his mother’s, passed down from his family since they’d left Oneida and maybe even before then. The box and it’s contents sat on her dressing table and she refused to touch them. Father Strand’s mother had whispered to him in a low flat voice as a small child that the necklace inside was destined for someone special and the family would know when it was. 

Father Strand knows. He knows since even before he’d left that ring of bites around Alex’s neck—a collar that marked her as his that she needed to hide from those who would think to take her away from him. This, _this_ was protection from that and every time he saw his Alex, the necklace around her skin would remind him who she belonged to. 

He knows Alex is already well aware of the fact that she belongs to him. 

His breath just hisses in as Father Strand looked to the clock above the mantelpiece. It was hardly Alex’s fault that her flight was delayed but it felt like it should be a sin. The separation between them should be a sin when all he wants is to drag his fingers through her hair and give it a sharp tug that causes her to gasp with want. 

Of course their proclivities match. It wouldn’t be their destinies if they didn’t. 

He traced his plans over in his mind as the shadows in his office grew larger and larger. They stretched and they shifted, and they grew as hungry as ever before Father Strand just scowled, lifting scotch that most priests he knew would give their useless testicles for and taking a long sip of it. “Not yet.” His voice is authority incarnate and the demons fold into themselves, falling to become twilight shadows rather than what they are. “She’s not ready yet. When she is, then she’ll fulfill her destiny. Until then, do not come unless you are summoned. If you push her to hard she’ll fracture. We don’t want that.”

“ _If_ you _push her too hard she will fracture._ ” The demons speak as one as a warning. “ _Her heart is just as fragile as the rest of her human body._ ”

“No. Her heart is the key. Her heart and her love and everything that it leads her to do or to be allowed to be done to her. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. We’ve planned too long for this for something to stop it. Alex Reagan is mine with to do with as I wish until it’s time for her to fulfill her purpose. So you will obey me. Or you will be sent back to the pit. Do you understand me?”

“ _We understand, Strand. We understand, we see. We warn. We see what she could be. We see what you could make her._ ”

“Enough!” Strand’s voice is a roar and were Alex not on her way the glass and it’s contents would have been splattered against the bookshelf and wall. “I hear your warnings. Return to your place. I release you this night.” With his fingers shifting into a complex series of sacred geometry the lighting in the room returned to normal. 

Even if his mood didn’t. 

The last of the golden light had faded from the sky, and his office was only lit by the low hue of the lamp on his desk. His third scotch sat untouched at his elbow as he leaned back into the chair. And the suddenly there was the key and the alarm and the woman he wants more than most anything is there giving him a sheepish smile. 

“I’m so sorry, Father.” There’s a different slant in the word that Strand knows he should correct Alex on. It’s too familiar. It’s too like a lover. It’s too much of an endearment. 

He likes it too much as Alex drops her bag in the chair and then speaks again. “O’Hare was a damned nightmare.” Lingering at the end of his desk with her hands twisting to release too much anxious energy, Alex just bites her lip, her eyes a question on his own. 

Slow to rise, Strand moves to his feet, his steps purposely predatory almost as his eyes remained locked on her own. He watches her as she swallows with anticipation before he stands in front of her. It’s just a moment that pause, long enough to make her hold her breath before he just breathes her name. “ _My Alex._ ” It’s both her name and not, but it’s certainly how he thinks about her at this point. 

And then his fingers are sliding into the mass of mahogany, tangling into it as he draws her closer and presses a searing kiss to her lips. Well, that seems to answer that question for Alex even as only one of her hands wraps around his neck, the other ready to pull away guiltily if someone happened to come inside. 

“I missed you, my Alex.” His voice is low, nearly a growl against her lips. “Did you miss me?” With busy hands, Father Strand caught the ends of the scarf she was wearing and untangled them, drawing the pashmina down and against the bruises before he dropped it on the floor so that he could see the marks he’d left there as he practically purred, “I certainly missed you.”

Without answering him, Alex just draws back slightly, the concern evident on her face. It’s weird for her (very weird really) to be the voice of caution in anything and she can’t help wondering if he knows that. (He knows. Of course he knows.) “If secrecy is so important, shouldn’t we not be doing this in your office?” The question comes with a concerned smile towards the still open door. 

It’s a door he walks over to and shuts and then locks behind her. “Before you, Alex Reagan no one would dare enter my private sanctuary unannounced. Besides there’s no one here this late other than you and myself.” Taking a step closer to her, he rests his hand on her hip. “I appreciate the caution, Alex, but I would never place you in a situation that might somehow cause the end of this. You believe that, yes?” There’s that vulnerability in Strand’s voice that he placed there before, and he knows what an effective weapon that it can sometimes be. 

Especially against a woman who was as empathetic as Alex herself was. 

Which is why he’s not surprised when she responds softly: “Yes. I believe you, Father.” And then after another heart beat. “Yes, I missed you too.” Stepping closer to him, tentative arms raise to wrap around his neck and she just kisses him softly and gently. 

It’s a very Her kiss. 

But he deepens it quickly and turns it to one of his own: greedy. Hungry. Starving. Needful. He’s kissing her like their kiss may hold the world together and soon enough she’s kissing him back just as ardently. 

Father Strand wants to tell her to take off her clothes and kneel before him. He wants to press his cock into that pretty, hungry mouth as he leans over and fastens the collar around her neck. He wants her crying his name against his desk. He wants and he wants and he desires and he wants to push. 

Maybe what the demons said does have some merit after all. 

When he draws away from the kiss (too soon, far too soon) he just looks at her for a moment considering her lovely face, the way her eyes are as dark and heavy with lust as his own. Her lips look so pretty when she’s been kissed soundly, and when she’s letting out a little whimper of disagreement that he’s stopped kissing her. 

It brings that image of her on her knees and naked to the foreground and he groans loudly in response. 

But instead he just sits on the edge of his imposing desk, drawing her to stand between his knees. Now, their height matches and he lightly pushes off her jacket, a compromise to what he needs. “I have something for you.” His tone is a low purr as his hands settle on her back low near her hips and the waistband of the yoga pants she travels in. (He approves. They’re easy to remove.)

“Let me guess,” there’s amusement in her tone as her fingers brush slowly against his hairline. “Is it a rosary?”

“No. It’s better. And it’s been in my family for generations, Alex.” She blinks at him when he places the heavy box between her hands and then waits for her to lift the fading lid. 

What’s inside is an antique and delicate gold chain, connected to a blue enamel pendant that’s laced with pearls. From it, a matching delicate crucifix dangles. It’s a short necklace, small and feminine and Alex knows that it’s short enough for the part that’s not the cross to be a collar. Frowning at him she can’t help but ask, “if it’s a family heirloom, why are you giving it to me, Father?”

“There are a combination of factors, my Alex. First and foremost it’s to protect you. This necklace has been blessed by all of the popes who have lived since it was created.” Keeping his voice low and intimate it was like he was telling her a story as Alex traces her fingers gently over it. 

“There’s even talk of a reliquary of a saint hidden beneath the enamel. Of course what saint it is is up for debate but if nothing else it should protect you from what happened in the woods if I’m not there with you for some reason. Alex,” he takes her hand and looks into her eyes his voice soft and open. “Everything I do is to protect you. Everything.”

Father Strand just pauses for a moment before reaching for the box and removing the necklace. Rubbing the unexpected weight of it through his fingers, he speaks again. “And there’s more than that Alex. It means more. I can’t buy a ring for your finger to show my commitment to you. I can’t kiss you in the sun where you should be kissed. I cannot allow anyone else to know of my feelings for you. But you wearing this is a promise, Alex. It’s proof of my commitment to you and I hope your commitment to me.”

For a moment, Alex is just speechless, her eyes wide as she stares at him, and he stares back. She’s expressive, so he can watch the surprise and doubt and confusion work their way across her face. He can see the battle going on inside of her in her eyes and in the movements of her body as she attempts to work through this. The arguments are ones that he can almost see: too much, too fast, too… Just too, probably. But he also knows that there’s not another option for her to take. 

This is her soul she’s talking about here, and it’s a weapon that he doesn’t even need to wield. 

“I know what you’re thinking, Alex,” he says quickly, giving voice to her doubts, his fingers moving tenderly along the pale skin and freckles of her cheek. “It’s too soon, it’s too much. There’s still too much that we don’t know and that we can’t predict. I know that this burden you carry is a heavy one, my Alex. I know how much it weighs on every part of you. I don’t want you to think that I’m adding to it with this. If it helps, think of it as my promise to protect and save you. Nothing more.” His voice drops lower as Father Strand breathes against Alex’s ear. “It’s a necklace, Alex. Nothing more. And it’s one that you can remove.”

Alex is silent for a moment and he watches her weigh those words against her heart and against his own. He watches her eyes move from the blue of his own to the enamel on the necklace and then back to him. Breathing in and out slowly, Alex draws the uncertainty from her veins like the poison it is before she nods. “Okay.” The wavering in her voice is offset by the way she gives him a smile. 

“Okay,” he offers her in return, Strand’s voice as ever more certain than hers is. Kissing her then is easy, and it’s a language that the two of them have no uncertainties in. Her hand moves to the back of his neck to hold onto him as the kiss deepens and lengthens, stretching between them with stolen breaths and unspoken promises. “Will you let me put it on you and bless you my Alex?” His voice is seductive as the first serpent’s against her lips and he can feel her skin break out in goosebumps from it. When he pulls back a bit, the desire is there, adding darkness to her already deep eyes. 

It spurns him on, almost in spite of himself. “Will you do it as God intended us to be?” Before she could ask what it is, (if she was going to) Strand loves his hands to the bare hollow of her throat, gliding the barest brush of his fingertips down it to the button of her shirt. With his eyes on hers, he presses it through the hole and then removes his fingers and hold on her, leaving the decision in her hands. 

(As if he doesn’t know what she’s going to chose already.) 

Approval comes in a low noise from his throat as Alex steps back from him, her fingers on the buttons that he’d left done. They make short work of the shirt. It’s not a strip tease or a titillation—it doesn’t need to be one not when they’re like this. Instead his full few of her pale skin is revealed quickly and she drops the shirt onto the floor. The lace of her bra follows next, and he makes a noise of appreciation at the choice in her lingerie (which was something to consider later.)

Stepping from her flats and pulling down her yoga pants and underwear that matched her bra. (She did it for him, he knows. She did it for him.) Father Strand can’t help the low and possessive note he makes deep in his throat as she sinks slowly down onto her knees before him. Alex’s eyes bore into his own and she gives him a smile as he appraises her, the wry grin Strand wears growing into a brighter, much larger one as he sees the fingerling bruises on her hips. The purple is starting to molt into yellow but he can renew them soon enough. 

Father Strand’s voice is lower, affected as he just touches her cheek slowly. “Hold up your hair, Alex.” It’s a sweet order as Alex wrestles her mass of dark hair up, leaving the dotted pale skin of her neck exposed. Hungry touches traced along the line of her throat, down along her collarbone and into the valley of her breasts. Exhaling slowly, he circles one palming it before he leans down and presses a kiss to the top of her shoulder. With his fingers rolling over her nipple, Alex gives a shuddering moan before Strand just breathes softly. “Fuck you’re beautiful, Alex.”

He lingers there, just breathing in the smell of her skin for a long moment, his tall form looming over the smaller, kneeling one of hers. It’s a long and still moment before he brings the gold of the necklace, warm from being in his other hand around her neck. Drawing back to see the clasp, he just wraps it there and then watches as Alex closes her eyes and laced her fingers together in prayer. 

Father Strand grins—he can’t help it. 

But for now, with her not watching he slips his voice into the one that he uses for mass, for things like this. It’s authority incarnate, as if he could order God himself the way he does the demons at his beck and call. “God, the Father who watches over all, protect your humble child, Alex from the demons that are haunting her, and from the fingers that leech towards her soul. In your name, and in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Alex just breathed out and one of her fingers moves to caress the golden cross before she gave the answering, “amen.” With eyes hidden below the thick row of lashes, she looks up at him for a moment as he straightens up. But he doesn’t back away, and Strand knows Alex can see why. The perfect pressed black pants are straining in the front. 

Sharp but precise movements undo the buckle of his belt, the button and the zipper as he pulls himself out and holds himself with one hand. With the other, Father Strand presses his fingers into the mass of her hair. There’s a deliberate look on his face before he speaks, “in your mouth, Alex. Like a good girl.”

Her response is a whimper, it can’t no be when Father Strand is using Alex’s own words, her own confession against her. Words flutter between them, barely breathed as Alex leans forward. “Oh god.” They are nearly uttered against the head of his length as she moves to use her tongue against too heated skin. 

“Yes,” he hisses it in response as his hand tightens in her hair, and Strand tips his head back as her mouth moves over him, tongue and lips learning this part of him in this way. Years on the radio (and the Shakespeare class she’d taken to prepare herself for that) mean that Alex has excellent breath control, and it’s not like she’s a novice to this given her fantasy. Her mouth is hot and tight when she draws him into it, and her tongue moves against him in a way that makes him let go of his length and grip the desk behind him. 

“Good girl, my Alex. Such a good girl.” The words are groans, and for once he doesn’t need to lock his teeth against the moans as she moves faster over him, taking him deeper into his mouth. A moment stretches out between them as he holds her hair and then authority is back in his voice when he speaks again, watching the woman kneeling at his feet with his cock in her mouth. “Touch yourself, Alex. Touch your clit like you do when you imagine it’s me.”

Feeling rather than seeing the heat in her cheeks, Strand just smiles as he watches her hand move low, finding her core and working against it. He can fill the moans against him and it makes him hiss and his hand tighten as she writhes against her fingers and moves her mouth and tongue in the same rhythm. 

Watching her like this is a delight. It’s a delight that rushes over him like a deluge, his hand gripping her hair even more tightly in an action that’s more like a pull than a hold. Whimpers and whines come against his cock as her hand moves faster, her other hand moving to enter her as Alex’s fingers work against her clit. For a moment he considers chiding her, telling her that he didn’t order that, but as more of him into her mouth and then her throat, Father Strand can’t bring himself to chide her. 

He’s too close to the edge for that. “Yes.” Strand’s voice is a needful hiss. “In your mouth like this, Alex. Faster.” Pulling her hair and bringing her head closer to him, more of his length presses inside of her throat. Watching as her back arches and her movements become more wild and less coordinated, hips moving in abandon. Alex Reagan is beautiful on the point of her climax and he wants to drive her over that edge before he fills her mouth. 

“Yes. Come for me, my Alex. Come now.” It’s oh so satisfying to bring her to a climax even without touching her and Strand can’t hold off his any longer. Nor does he want to. With a shout of her name, Father Strand just comes in her mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, Father Richard Strand is kind of the worst and we love him for it anyway, don't we? Comments and kudos are love!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Father Strand finally get around to actually discussing Sebastian, Alex's stigmata worsens and the two of them do terrible and kinky things inside a church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are in the final stretch. We've got four more chapters (two of which are written) and an epilogue to go. Thanks to all those who have stuck with this, or who have ventured to give it a chance. Comments and kudos are love!

That night, Alex sleeps in his bed at his insistence and once again reminding her that he wouldn’t do anything that might jeopardize their relationship. Still, worrying has become second nature for her as of late and worrying about this and of him was a huge part of it. Alex Reagan has always enjoyed playing with fire when it came to her life and career but dancing with her soul on a knife edge is a new experience. It’s a harrowing one and Alex just wishes that it was less exciting. 

Or that he was less enthralling honestly. That Father Strand was less… something. Enigmatic maybe. Alex has always enjoyed a mystery but Father Strand took it to a level that was annoyingly literal at times. Which was why the two of them were sitting in a pew in the darkened church, the candles in their crimson glass holder seeming very far away. 

“So, Father,” Alex begins, watching Father Strand watch her in the low lighting. “Tell me about bilocation. You’ve been very… evaise on the subject.” But Alex had found Simon Reese or at the very least she had found the case files on him and the trial. Whatever else Alex could be, she was a good reporter and it was only a few minutes of googling that had offered her the case details. 

When Simon was eleven, he’d killed his parents. Or at the very least someone had. He was put on trial for the crime but despite the grisly nature of the scene, the boy had no blood on him when it was discovered. There’d been no blood in the drains and there was no boy-shaped void in the splatter patterns of the blood. There was no anyone shaped void in the blood for that matter, something that seemed impossible but Simon’s defense attorneys hadn’t seized on it the way that she would have expected them too. 

Instead the nature of their defense was different: that Simon Reese was clinically insane and had no way of knowing what he’d done had been wrong. Instead, before he had gone mute, Simon ranted about demons and doorways. From news reports at the time, apparently the day before it had happened Simon had showed up at a church— _this church_ —and had sought help from the priest who sat brushing his thumb over the back of her hand. 

In the end, it was Father Strand’s testimony that had made the difference and why an eleven year old boy had been convicted of a double murder and was sent to Three Rivers mental hospital where he was to this day. His story about demons and both being in the room and not in the room had never wavered, not even with the fact that he was facing this certain and bleak future. 

Given that Alex had seen Simon in a car in Washington state at the same time that he was allegedly locked up back here in Chicago, Alex believes him. Not only does she believe that he did it but that the bilocation mostly talked about on reddit forms and flash-ridden old pages from around the time of the trial eight years ago is a very real phenomena. 

“You want to know about Simon.” It’s a flat statement that is punishing punctuated by one of his heavy sighs. 

“Of course I want to know about Simon! But every time I’ve bought him up before now you’ve brushed me off. I know what the papers say happened. I know that you still visit him. But what I want to know is what the hell he has to do with me.”

Watching her for a long moment he just takes a deep breath before he starts to explain. “Then you know before he murdered his parents he showed up here. I thought he was just a sick kid who was having problems with his parents. I didn’t give him a chance to explain. What Father Vincent said about the Order of the Ceonophus and people close to kids opening doors for them? That happened with Simon. His mother, who spent weekends working in a daycare opened the door for him. His father was a willing participant in all of it. When he came he was raving about how they were giving other kids like him to demons. I didn’t realize how serious it was at the time until I saw about their murders on the news and how Simon was raving about how it had been demons. 

“One of my parishioners was a cop, and he was there that day. He said that Simon scared him, that there was something otherworldly about him. When he asked if I would come and talk to him at the county lock up, I had to say yes. It was only when I did that I realized just how much I had failed that poor kid.” One of Father Strand’s hands moved across his face as he sighs, his voice raw with emotion. Alex can’t help but to respond to it, gently reaching out to cup his cheek. 

“What was happening, what _had_ happened to Simon was no mere case of possession. It was like nothing I had ever heard of before. Simon was aware of the demon and he was actively fighting against it. What was more was that he could access the powers and abilities that demons would have had in his body. He could bilocate and that was why he killed his parents. Simon admitted to me that he’d done it, and that he’d done it through bilocation. He also admitted that he’d done it in order to help save those other children from experiencing a similar fate to that which his parents had damned him too. More than that, Simon told me in no uncertain terms that he would do it again.

“To rational men of the law, and outside of it, those of us who believe in demons and the things that they can’t see or explain are just mad men. There was no way they were going to let Simon just be free. And honestly with the monks from the Order on the loose, it wouldn’t have even have been safe for him to be free. You know the rest of that part—I testified that he believed in demons and what he’d done and Simon took a plea deal that would leave him locked in the hospital for the rest of his life.”

Alex’s voice is soft and pained, “that poor kid.”

“Yes,” Father Strand just agrees with her softly, pressing his palm against the outside of her hand. “But it’s not all bad. Bilocation means that he is able to leave his physical body and travel with just his spirit. There’s few limits on what it can do. Great distances are difficult but the walls there can’t hold Simon prisoner.”

“So why did he appear to me? You, it makes sense he’d appear to if he’s close to you, but he doesn’t know me. Or at least he shouldn’t. But he did. Did you tell him about me? About what’s happening?”

“Alex…” he just begins quickly and Alex cuts him off with a quick movement of her other hand. 

“No, don’t tell me not knowing is for my own good. I _need to know_ what’s going on. You’re keeping things from me still and it’s not fair!” With her voice raising in the church, Alex can almost swear that she hears an echo of her last three words around her. It’s faint but it rings in her ears and it almost sounds… mocking to them. If the man sitting across from her hears it, he gives no sign of it as he sighs again. 

“I don’t want to frighten you, My Alex.”

“I _am_ frightened, Father. _I’m scared to death of all of this._ And everything you don’t tell me makes me even more scared. I need to know. If you’re not willing to tell me then how can I keep trusting you?”

Silence stretches between them, heavier and more inky than the interplay between the shadows and the flickering of the candle flames. “Simon’s connection to the demon realm is as intact as it was before. It’s as intact as it’s always going to be. And he’s heard of you from them. The demons talk of you, Alex. They talk about how you’re going to be the one to open the door for them. They’ve been watching you since you saved Sebastian.”

It’s easier for Alex to latch onto the lesser piece of what he said for a moment, choosing that in order to stave off the terror of what it was that he was saying they spoke of. “Demons. Are _talking about me_.” She can’t put into words the dread of what they were saying, not yet but she’s gripping his hand very tightly. 

“Alex,” he tries to soothe her, his hand falling through her hair. “We’re going to stop it. They speak of a possibility that you’re not going to allow to happen. That _we’re_ not going to allow to happen.”

“What happens if they’re right, Father? What if I am the one who opens the door? What happens.”

“Nothing is going to happen, Alex.” His voice is firm, but Alex resists the urge to give into it. 

“Just tell me what happens, Father Strand. Please.” It’s begging, simple and flat out begging and Alex can’t help it, not when her brain is filling with images of Sebastian Torres bleeding, not when she can see the shadows in the church starting to creep closer in the corner of her eyes as if they too wish to hear the answer to her whimpered questions.

Very gently, and cupping her chin so that Alex meets strand’s eyes, he just speaks softly. “You _know_ what happens, Alex.”

With her doe eyes filling with tears, Alex can’t help the whimpered sob that echoes her throat. “What I see in my nightmares. What was on the other side of the door. It comes out. They come out.” Alex’s words trip and stumble, running together as her hands reach out for his as if they could prevent her tumbling down as she continues: “Tiamat and the dragons come. They bring fire and death and it’s all my fault. All of it. I didn’t close the door in the first place and it’s why they’re getting worse isn’t it?” Her voice is thick with the tears that she’s refusing to shed, sharpness there against herself for something that Alex didn’t know she was supposed to do in the first place. 

Father Strand’s hands wrap around her’s and for just a second it’s a lifeline. It is a second and nothing more, before Alex screams, the sound echoing across the stoned vaults of the Church before it echoes back in her ears almost as a mocking laughter. When she holds up her hand to look at it, Alex already knows what she’ll see there; where her wrist was white and blue from her veins the stigmata has spread and burns hot and crimson, her flesh angry with it. 

“ _Oh god oh god oh god._ ” The words are a chant as Alex spirals outwards into definite panic. It’s hot and sharp and spreading with the new pain in her hand. Spots appear in her eyes, and in this moment the ability to tell if they’re demons or if she’s just not breathing are impossible for her to tell (if it ever is). “ _Oh my god no please no._ ”

“Alex.” The voice is sharp at her side and she can’t see the source of it, not even when it comes once more only more urgently. “Alex. Breathe. You need to breathe.” She can’t. She can’t breathe. Instead it’s sharp and panicked gasps of hyperventilating, as her hands just flap in front of her as if the repetitive movement could somehow just wipe them off. 

‘ _Out damned spot_ ’ Alex thinks and she knows that she’s losing it. Has lost it. Lost it three months ago. Maybe she never even had it…

Father Strand’s voice comes into her thoughts once more an order this time rather than a plea. “ _Breathe Alex_. Focus on my voice and just breathe.” With a whimper, she does take a ragged breath, and then another, and a third before Alex feels herself being gently lifted from the waist. Wrapping her arms instinctively around Father Strand’s neck, but leaving them loose, she just keeps making those harsh sounds as Alex attempts to fill lungs that are drowning in the viscous fluid of her panic. 

Burrowing her face into his neck, Alex doesn’t know where he’s taking her, and her heart is too loud in her ears to hear the sound of his feet against the stone. Still, it’s dark where they are, when he leans her against the wall and settles her onto her feet. “Alex.” He says sharply. “Alex look at me. You need to get out of your head.” He says it like it’s easy, like it’s just that easy, and she wants to bite the words at him, growl them into his face. But he doesn’t give her the chance. Instead he just asks her one thing: “do you trust me, Alex?” 

“Yes,” she breathes, because even with everything else, she trusts him, in him, in what he says that he’s doing for her soul. Her eyes focus finally on his own, the blue almost gleaming in the dim light of the knave of the church. They’re surrounded by statues and by shadows and Alex starts to feel the panic creeping along the floor like the shadows zoning on her location. She whimpers, tears glistening at the base of her eyelashes. 

“Cross your arms and above your head, Alex. And press your head against the stone.” While he says the words he’s pulling off the purple silk stole that is one of the signs of his office, and he just adds, “now, Alex.” Before her hands shoot up in the air, crossing at her wrists. Strand adjusts them so that the two marks of the stigmata can’t touch of her own accord before he ties them together with the sash. It’s a very tight hold, and it needs to be, because Alex needs to latch onto something that isn’t this. 

“Please Father,” Alex just begs softly, but sweetly the need etched into every part of her from her fingerprints down into her very soul. “Please Father, I need you. I can’t keep thinking about this. I’m losing it. I can’t…. I _can’t._ ” 

Strand just swallows her cries with a demanding kiss of her mouth, nipping at her lower lip before his tongue pressed inside of her mouth. Her body moved towards his wildly, save for where her hands remained pressed against the wall, just touching it with the outside of it by her index fingers. He kisses her for a long moment until he can feel the panic in her starting to stop and instead becoming overridden with desire. 

All the while, Father Strand’s hands move inside of his pocket, finding what he’s looking for. When he pulls back, Alex just whimpers at him, her eyes drawing open frantically. “Do you really not want to think, Alex?” The question is asked as he steps out of her circle of personal space as if to make her decision easier without the warmth of him filling it. 

“Yes Father,” she groans and chews on kiss-pouted lips, Alex’s eyes darker with desire even than they were dilated by the play of shadow and candlelight here in the knave. “Please Father,” she adds, tripping over her words. “ _Please._ ”

His hand doubled the beads of his rosary over, making the wood click softly but increasing the width of it. After all, Strand realized, he needed to make certain that she didn’t choke on it in the wrong moment. His thumb pressed below her lower lip, just against her chin, prodding her mouth to open. Pressing the doubled strands against her teeth, Father Strand just adds, “don’t make a sound, Alex.”

Giving him a look (because there is no situation in which _Alex Regan is good at being quiet_ ) Alex does nod, and he kisses along her chin for a moment, while he drags his teeth across the skin, he is careful not to leave marks where someone other than the two of them might see them. Still even lacking the marks, there’s still the sharpness of sensation there, even when bites against the wood of the beads so that she doesn’t cry out. 

“Good girl, Alex.” He croons the words as Father Strand looks at her, his hands wandering down to her sides. But they ignore her shirt entirely in favor of her hips, and Alex just whimpers as he walks his fingers across the waist and of her jeans. Button through the hole and it’s accompanied sound of the zipper being undone seem too loud in Alex’s ears, but Father Strand plays it no mind and he slowly starts to drag it and the combined fabric of her underwear down her thighs. 

Like Father Strand has had Alex so so many times before him, he sinks down onto his knees. The difference in him is that it’s in submission or in supplication or even in deference. No, Father Strand on his knees before her has the air of a man accessing a vintage car; making sure that it’s purring properly. Placing a kiss against the back of her knee, Father Strand’s eyes gleam oddly in the low light, and they hold Alex’s own gaze intensely as he presses another kiss as he works his way up her thigh. Here, on her pale skin, that would be hidden by her jeans, or even if she wore a skirt, there’s no cause for concern when it comes to the prying eyes of others, and he does bite. Not enough to break the skin of course, but to make blood come to the capillaries below in order to create a bruise. 

Enough to make her gasp and write, pressing her hips towards him. Certainly enough to make her stop thinking about her hands. 

Leaving a breadcrumb trail of bites up the pale and freckled flesh of her thigh, Richard strokes the back of her other knee with his thumb, mindlessly forming circles there against her skin. He can feel her pulse there, and the way that it races with an entirely different heat than the one that it did with the panic that was ripping through her. When he reached her lips, he traced his tongue over first one and then the other before he slowly parted them, delving his tongue deeper inside of her. 

His tongue moves in broad swatches, seeking to learn her like this in this way, the way her breath hitches as she tries to hold onto the gag with her teeth and be silent. It’s beautiful to watch with her head tipped back and he moves his hand from her knee to part her more fully than Strand had before, and he takes her clit into his mouth and sucks on it softly, making her buck towards him even more. 

Despite the white collar that he’s still wearing around his neck with his face buried inside her core, Father Strand is actually quite good at this, and he adds his fingers to her, curling two of them inside her as he sucks. Alex just whimpers against the rosary, and she writhes her hips towards him more fiercely than she did before, and if her hands weren’t bound above her head, they’d be buried in his hair to press him deeper. Father Strand takes the hint, and he thrusts his fingers inside of Alex more firmly before applying a sharper pressure to her clit. The cry she makes is still muffled by the wooden bead, and Alex needs to suck them further into her mouth so that she doesn’t drop them onto the stone floor that he’s kneeling against. 

He watches her, as she throws her head back, as she breathes harsher and more sharply, the smaller confines of the knave giving him the sounds like a symphony that echoes around the two of them. For a moment, Father Strand wants to take the beads from her lips to see if he can make her echo throughout the cathedral, if he can give the birdish old ladies a real cry of ecstasy to compare theirs to as they move through their Our Fathers and play at being pious. Piety, he knows, especially in the cases of many of the women who come here is just another sin on their lips that they pay service too, something to make themselves feel better about all of the misfortunes in their lives. 

Someday, they’d actually know true misfortunes, and it would be someday soon, thanks to the beautiful woman who is so very close to coming on his fingers and against his mouth. At this point between them, he knows when he can tell when she’s on the edge, and Strand redoubles his efforts, holding onto her thighs hard enough to leave fingering bruises on her pale thigh with his free hand. Alex Reagan comes undone the same way that she does everything else: with everything inside of her demanding to be freed. It’s a beautiful sight, and one that Strand’s going to need to facilitate as often as possible. 

Watching her face stained scarlet, Strand just waits, still kneeling at her feet but with his hardness straining at the front sharp press of his trousers. He’s waiting, and there’s a predatory line in his body as he watches his prey allow the awareness to come back into her pretty face. Rising to his feet, Richard moves his hands to her waist in order to support her tiny frame until her legs can handle her weight. “Alex.” He breathes her name in ear, and it’s as lewd of a prayer as a prayer could be, or as divine as lewd could promise, and Alex herself isn’t sure which is which. “Can I fuck you?” 

With the wooden rosary beads still between her teeth and a jaw that she knows will be aching with the effort of keeping it in her mouth later, Alex just groans softly as she nods in response. He presses a kiss to her forehead while his hand moves from her waist to his zipper. Father Strand doesn’t bother to take his pants off, he can’t wait for that, and instead, he holds himself in one hand before he lifts her with the other. The swear that falls from his lips seems doubly profane as he drives himself into the heated wetness of her. The moment doesn’t last long, it can’t not with the church, the sounds she’s making, the way that Alex is writing against him, and the wait for it all. But he still makes her come again, thanks to her sensitivity, and his fingers against her clit while he fucks her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Nic begin to have it out over what's going on and she's interrupted by a surprising person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I bet you guys thought I forgot about this fic! I definitely haven't, and we're in the home stretch for it! The Wonderful Part of the Mess We Made has just kinda eaten my brain and it's super hard to go back and forth between that and this. But to make it up to you, here's two chapters to celebrate Halloween!

“Alex, I haven’t spoken to you in two weeks. You haven’t even bothered to email me in a week. I call and you send me to voicemail. Do you know how many panicked calls I’ve gotten from Tannis, Paul and Terry? From your mother? I was about to get on a plane!” Alex is sitting in a crowded cafe talking to Nic on Skype and nursing her third—no fourth. Definitely fourth cup of coffee since she’s been here. She doesn’t know exactly how long she’s been here honestly. There are times lately when Alex’s body seems to be entirely out of itself lately and here among normal people, among life is definitely one of them. Maybe it’s a bad idea. 

It seems like all she ever has lately is bad ideas. 

But Nic is still talking and Alex tries to focus her attention on her friend on the screen rather than the people and their shadows around her. There are too many shadows always now, just there peeking at the corner of her eyes. If Alex really looks then she can see their dangling fingers shaking in a non-existent breeze of delight. She can see the crooked teeth of their smiles. 

If she thinks about it, Alex can even smell the sulfur and stale but sharp muddiness underneath the caffeinated and bake good scented air around her. It should be more concerning to her and she knows it. But right now it’s as familiar to her as the floral notes of _Beautiful_ by Estee Lauder that clung to her mother’s closet. 

Alex chooses not to think about it. She’s been doing that a lot lately too. 

“Alex you look like hell. I can tell you’re not sleeping! And what’s with the gloves? You look like you’re some 2000s teen who just discovered Hot Topic.”

Alex knows she looks like hell. If it wasn’t for the makeup that she applies to the dark circles under her eyes (and marks on her visible skin but she can’t think about that now) she would avoid mirrors entirely. Her clothing fits better than it did thanks to Strand’s insistence on feeding her but that’s probably the only thing that looks better now than it did when she arrived here from Seattle. Telling herself that things always get darkness before the dawn is one of the few things that seems to help Alex right now but it’s harder to do that away from the church and now that she’s in the cold light of day she knows that. 

At the mention of her hands, Alex looks down at them and the fingerless gloves that she’d panicked and ordered at three am a few nights ago. They were black and white striped and Nic was right, they do look like they could have come from Hot Topic. But looking at her hands makes her think of the bandages swaddling the stigmata there, and a fresh ache courses through them and up her arms into her chest. It tightens, and Alex doesn’t know if it’s pain or a familiar panic that courses through her nerve endings now. Reflexively, Alex reaches up to touch the crucifix that’s at the bottom of the blue choker. 

“Nic, I’m sorry. We’ve just been busy. I’ve been doing my job and investigating all of this!” But her voice sounds weaker somehow and more far away to her own ears. This isn’t her and she knows it. Maybe she’ll never be her again. Maybe that Alex Reagan never existed and she was nothing but a construct in Alex’s own mind. She truly doesn’t even know anymore. 

Nic colors, and she can see the anger in his blue eyes now. It’s sharp and hot and so different from how Father Strand’s becomes ice when he’s angry with her. He’s going to be furious with her now and she knows it. Everyone seems to be furious with her right now, including (and especially) herself. 

“Your job is being a _journalist_ , Alex. Your job is to figure out the story not to become the story! Your job is to check in and send us stuff for the show. Alex you haven’t sent us anything for over a month!”

Alex colors defensively as she speaks. “I told you, I’ve been busy. There are things that could put people at risk. Things that could put _me_ at risk if I send them to you before we’re done!” Alex can feel more of herself slipping back into her voice, anger giving it scaffolding to climb and work over in order to almost wake her up it seems. “You have to trust me. Why is it so hard to trust that I’m doing what’s best for me and the show?!”

“Because you’re not thinking straight, Alex. You’re wandering really far off the path here! Look, I’m not telling you this to piss you off, but ever since…” 

“Since Sebastian?” Alex snaps the words at him sharply. “Since I crossed a magical barrier and my hand got burnt and since I was stabbed and should have died?”

Nic looks pale, and Alex knows the fear that has written itself over his face. “Jesus, Alex. Do you really think that you should have died?!” When she doesn’t look at him and doesn’t respond, the fear in his voice writes itself once more into anger. “Is that what Strand is telling you, Alex?! Because it’s bullshit! He’s bullshit! And I was going to say that you’ve been _wrong_ ever since we went to meet Strand in Chicago!” 

With a quickness that offers her anger even more than the sharpness in her tone a Alex turns to look at Nic again, she just hisses. “Father Strand is trying to save me!” 

“Is he, Alex? Is he really? Or is he just trying to manipulate you?!” 

“Manipulate me? Why the hell would he even want to do that?! He’s a fucking _priest_ , Nic!” But there’s something in her brain that whispers, and it sounds like Father Strand reminding her that Nic would do this. That he doesn’t believe her. That Father Strand is the only one who can save her. If she doesn’t believe that then this, all of this is for nothing. 

It can’t all be for nothing. Alex refuses to let it be for nothing. 

“A sketchy priest that has an agenda, Alex! He definitely has an agenda and he wants a platform and you’re giving him one by buying into all of his bullshit. Do you think we don’t know how much worse you’ve gotten since you’ve been out there alone and he’s been ‘helping’” after so long in radio, Alex doesn’t even need to look at Nic to see the scare quotes around that word--she can _hear_ them in his voice. “You? Do you think I can’t see that you look like you haven’t slept since you were home a month ago? Alex. He’s using you. He’s twisting everything that’s happened to you and everything that you believe and he’s twisting it into something dark. It’s something dangerous.” 

“Everything he’s doing, he’s doing to save me, Nic! He’s not twisting _anything_!” But both of them can hear the wall of defensiveness in her tone that she throws up against him and the situation too. 

“Alex, Tannis called me. He’s worried. He dreamed about you. He said that he could see your light slipping away…” It’s clear, even to Alex that with his tone of voice he’s trying this as a peace offering, or as a mirror to hold up and make her see some sort of reason. 

It doesn’t work: “yeah, well you always thought that everything that Tannis did was bullshit anyway! So why should this bother you?” 

“ _You_ believed in him, Alex. You believed in the things he said, so I was hoping that maybe that your friend who is the psychic might be able to get through to you when I can’t! Did you even listen to that recording that you sent of Strand in the car after you ran off? Because I did Alex. He’s setting you up and has been this whole time. He and that Simon kid talked about it. And I know that whatever happened when you weren’t in the car was bad, Alex! Way worse than anything you said. You let Strand drive your car and I’ve been your friend for a decade and you don’t even let _me_ do it!” 

Alex does believe in Tannis and that’s the worst part. She’s gotten his messages and they’ve gotten increasingly urgent over the last few weeks as he’s left them. He’s told her not to take off the amulet that he’s given her (that she still can’t find) about the safety that salt can offer, about how she needs to get more sleep in a tone that reminds her that he’s a psychic and he probably knows how rarely she sleeps alone. And the last one: a quiet and resigned (and frightened because Alex remembers how he sounds when he’s frightened.) that’s just a plea for her to call him. She didn’t. She knows she won’t. He probably knows it too.

“ _What are you talking about?_ ”

By way of answering, Nic just pressed a button, and the recording of Father Strand’s voice came to her ears. “ _She’ll know when she needs to know, Simon. When she’s spiritually ready. If we tell her before then we risk having another Keith Dabic on our hands. I won’t have that. You should have waited until I was alone to appear and warn me, Simon. Do not follow her. Do not stalk her. Do not be how you were with…_ ” there’s an audible click when Nic slams his hand onto the playback to turn it off. 

“Do you know who Keith Dabic is, Alex? Or was, I guess I should say? He was a kid who was obsessed with figuring out how to work a demon doorway so that he could stop kids from being possessed. His friend was allegedly killed by a demon when he was sixteen. Everyone said that he was getting close to something when he died. Do you want to know how he died, Alex? He was thrown out of a window of an abandoned monastery that just so happens to be right near the grounds of The Three Rivers Maximum Security Facility. The Three Rivers Maximum Security Facility is where convicted murderer Simon Reese is serving out his sentence. Don’t you think that’s even the slightest bit suspicious?” 

Surprise is etched over every piece of Alex, and she just stares at Nic for a moment, while he continues on. “ _Come home, Alex._ We’ve got priests in Washington. We’ve got exorcists. You’ve got your friends and family here. Come home.” 

“No, Nic. I can’t come home. Not until I finish this. Not until I know! The show…” 

“Alex, if you don’t come home there isn’t going to be a show!”

“What?!” Alex just slouches back into her seat, the anger in her spine deflating as the truth of what he’s saying really sinks into her. Nic can see it there in her eyes, and he breathes a sigh of relief that’s a perfectly sharpened knife blade over her skin.

“Alex if you don’t come home, take some time off and get some help, they’re canceling the show. They don’t care how many downloads you get, or how many awards you win. Paul and Terry, they care about you, Alex. I care about you! We’re worried. You haven’t even been speaking to your mom let alone us…” 

But Alex has stopped paying attention. A tall and slender shadow had fallen across her table, too tall and slender to belong to the woman who was borrowing it. Or who owned it, Alex can’t tell which and honestly she isn’t even sure that there’s a difference anymore. If there ever was--Alex doesn’t know that either. Everything is more questions than answers now, and it seems like every time she gets one, the other things that she knows fall between her fingers like ash or sand. The woman is pretty, and her hair comes over the shoulders of a jacket that Alex is truly envious of. But honestly what draws her attention is the woman’s eyes. They’re blue and large and artic ice cold--they’re Strand’s eyes. Immediately, Alex yanks the earbuds from her ears while closing her hand over her mike, preventing Nic from hearing anything that was being said. 

“Well, well, well,” there’s something in that voice, distant and haunting almost like it was coming from two different places in the woman’s diaphragm all at once. “I see that good old Uncle Richie finally found someone to wear the family collar. Good. I was starting to think that you were a myth. We do love old myths in this family.” 

“ _I’m sorry?!_ ” Alex just stares at the woman openly, trying to put the pieces of things together, but it’s like the puzzle is upside down and all of the pieces have exactly the same sort of jagged edged lines. Distantly, thinly, she can hear Nic’s voice calling out for her, and demanding that she respond to him. 

“Just wanted to take a look at the famous Alex Reagan. To see what all the fuss was about.” There’s something either amusedly dismissive or dismissively amused in the woman’s voice, and when Alex stares into those Strand-blue eyes she dimly realizes that they’re the same age, probably, even though Alex feels like she’s lived through a hundred years in the last four (five?) months. 

But realization draws on her: “Cheryl’s daughter. Charlotte. You’re Cheryl Strand’s daughter. I read about you…” 

“Well, not enough obviously, because somewhere it should have said that I definitely prefer Charlie to Charlotte and always have.” The words are entirely made of a fuck you, and Alex can’t help but notice the way that Charlie Strand doesn’t bother to hide the knives in her smile, or how sharp they are. She knows that Charlie is a Strand, because the fact that her mother became pregnant out of wedlock was quite the scandal according to some of the things that the little old ladies in Father Strand’s congregation had to say. That should have been enough to have been a way that Charlie could have heard about her, but Alex knows, she _knows_ that no one’s heard from Charlie Strand since she was sixteen and ran away from her grandparents’ home. 

“How did you hear about me?” Alex can’t help but asking, and the woman’s shadow looms over her so far that she’s already drawing back even before the woman’s body breeches the outer rim of Alex’s personal bubble. And then Charlie just laughs before she pulls away with a wave of her hand. 

“See ya around, Alex Reagan.” Leaving with a twist of an elegantly heeled boot, Alex is struck by the thought of whether or not being dramatic is part and parcel of the Strand DNA. 

But Nic is still shouting in her ear, and Alex puts one of the earbuds back in in time to catch Nic say “What the hell, Alex. I tell you that if you don’t come home you’re fired and you don’t even feel the need to respond? I thought that you had things that you valued, I can’t believe you’re just giving them up because you happen to have gone and developed feelings for this sketchy priest!” 

Being too angry to wonder just what she’d missed him saying while she was talking to Charlie Strand who was currently sauntering her way out of the door of the crowded coffee shop with her too tall shadow and her elaborately whipped cream topped coffee that was probably more confection than actual beverage. “Then I guess I fucking quit.” The words are a shock to both of them, and Alex can see that expression mirrored in both of their faces before she slams down the top of her macbook. Before she can even think of anything else, Alex has followed Charlie out of the door of the coffee shop. Looking up one side of the street and then the other, Alex walks down towards where there’s an alley that’s further away from the Church. 

Alex has barely made it into the alley before hands reach out and grasp her around the shoulders and shove her into the brick wall, damned near knocking the breath out of her. If the shove didn’t, then the woman’s thin arm pressing against her throat probably would have. “Really Alex, following a stranger into a dark alley… Didn’t your mother teacher you not to do very stupid things like that?”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Reagan comes face to face with a demon she doesn't expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

Charlie Strand is definitely too strong for her frame. Oh, she’s taller than Alex is, because most people tend to be, but Alex expects that even if Charlie worked out every day for twenty years she wouldn’t have the strength that she does now. Charlie’s arm is wrapped in the jacket that Alex would probably shoot a man for, but she knows that if was naked that there wouldn’t be the muscles there to hold her in place with such sharp force. It’s too much, and the shadow that Charlie is carrying with her stretches around them in a way that is far too akin to something out of a horror movie for Alex’s tastes. Sunlight seems absent somehow, plunging the dingy alley into a twilight liminal space and Alex is certain that even if she were to scream bloody murder that no one would hear it--or worse somehow that they might hear it and be standing directly next to them but not be able to see what was happening. 

Alex’s hands burn, and she cries out because she can’t help it. Fire creeps along every mark that is etched into her skin, spilling along it and carving out more seams and cracks. There’s a moment that Alex is pulled out of the present with a terrifying thought of a possible reality: that whatever is happening to her would cause the sacred geometry to be carved into her very bones where it would never heal and she would carry it always. She’s shaking now, and she can’t help it; Alex’s core is ice and shivering and it moves upwards and outwards, spreading and seeking out all of her nerve endings in the same way that Charlie’s shadow is blotting out everything. The woman’s pretty face and blue eyes that are so unsettlingly familiar that when Alex’s eyelashes flutter, she can almost swear that Father Strand’s face is somehow superimposed over Charlie’s and it’s like a photograph that somehow has been triple exposed. 

Charlie moves even closer, her body entirely pressed to Alex’s now as she looks down at her. The knife smile has sharpened somehow, whetted against the stone of Alex’s terror, and the cruelness of the woman’s eyes and countenance looms closer. Close enough to kiss her, or to rip her throat open like a vampire would and Alex can smell the musky scent mixed with sulfur that hides below the top notes of Charlie’s Black Opium perfume. God, she’s never going to be able to smell Amalia again without thinking of this moment, and this woman. It’s terrible and sharp and Alex can feel the breath coming from Charlie’s mouth against her own much too chilled skin. 

Devastatingly sure that Charlie is going to kiss her, Alex tries to feel a moment of relief that the other woman isn’t going to as her mouth moves closer to Alex’s ear. Relief doesn’t come. Instead, Alex worries for her throat, her neck and everything else as the too hot breath brushes against her ear. Idly she wonders if Charlie has a fever, but Alex knows that it’s not as simple as that and it probably never will be again for her. In the split second that Alex isn’t focused on Charlie, somehow the woman’s hand tangled in her hair, deep and next to the scalp. With her hair as a handle, and tilting Alex’s head to the side, Charlie inhales deeply, and Alex uncomfortably knows that the woman is definitely _smelling her._

“ _What the hell?!_ ” Finding her voice was more difficult than Alex expected it to be, but her voice sounds like herself again, all sharp and hard and with the anger that she’s feeling as her hands just ball into fists. Holding onto the pain from touching the stigmata is easy, but Charlie’s laughter is like some sort of unholy music: beautiful and _completely fucking terrifying_ all at the same time.

Breathing into Alex’s ear, Charlie speaks again, her voice again sounding doubled somehow. “Oh Alex Reagan. Always making one bad decision after another to end up here.” The other woman’s forehead touches Alex’s hair, and she breathes again, deeply. “God your fear is delicious. Sweetness and sharpness and something almost touched by the divine. I can see why he likes you.” 

“He? He who? What the hell are you talking about?!” Fear is still there in Alex’s voice, but it adds to it, enforces the anger that rests below it. Everything around her is too much: she’s too cold and Charlie’s too hot, Charlie’s too loud and Alex is too soft and she’s just too close, blocking everything else out. Finding some of her strength, Alex just shoves at Charlie, but it’s like slamming her hands into a brick wall. It hurts like hitting one too, and Alex just whimpers from the pain in her hands. It hasn’t been like this since the first time. Since the blood and everything else. Since… 

Whether it’s the whimper or it’s touching Alex, she doesn’t know, but Charlie draws back slightly, and the grip at her neck loosens and changes so that it’s a hand wrapped around her throat instead. Despite wanting to call this a victory, Alex can’t. She _can’t_ not when she sees the woman’s eyes and discovers that the Strand blue is gone. The whites of her eyes are gone. Instead it’s like a photoshop where someone stained the whole thing with a glossy black ink color. Alex wants to call it cliche, but she can’t. All she can do is stare at it with her mouth open wide and the taste of acidic bile at the back of her throat. 

Almost tenderly, Charlie’s hand moves from Alex’s hair to touch her chin, lightly pressing it upwards in order to close her mouth. With a smile that is definitely approval, Charlie speaks. “Oh come on, Alex. You know what I am. You knew it when I walked up to you in the cafe. You knew it when you fled the safety that your little producer friend was offering with his milquetoast ‘come home Alex, we’re all worried about you boo hoo hoo!’ The stigmata means that you can see us. Didn’t Uncle Richie tell you that? The more you get, the more you see. The more you will see. But the problem with that is that it means that _we can see you, Alex_. You’re golden in the gray of all the humans around you. It wasn’t very smart of you to leave the Church. We can only go there if we’re invited.” 

“Why the hell would someone invite demons into a church?!” It’s a question, the question that forces itself out of Alex’s mouth first, and it’s only after it comes that she realizes that she’s in fact accepting everything else that Charlie says to be true. Somehow, it doesn’t bring the panic in her that she thinks that it should, and it’s all Alex can do to wonder if she’s in shock or something. It wouldn’t surprise her, not with everything else that’s been going on. Maybe this is all some sort of weird nightmare that she’ll wake up from: that she didn’t just quit her job and argue with her best friend and that Charlie Strand isn’t here holding her by the neck against a wall and isn’t actually a demon. But Alex has never been very good at having that sort of movie moment, and Charlie’s grip on her neck tightens very slightly and Alex knows it for what it is: a warning. 

“Trying to escape your reality when someone literally has their hand around your throat? Tsk, tsk Miss Reagan. That’s definitely not a wise decision. You don’t want to become less interesting to me, do you? Because if you did, I’d definitely be forced to do something to you in order to make you more interesting again and I can promise you that you wouldn’t like that very much.” Charlie’s voice sounds almost _sweet_ somehow, even with the tsking, and any heat that Alex’s anger purchased for her evaporates in the face of this new and different onslaught. “Good girl,” the words are cooed quickly, and Charlie just taps her cheek. “Now where were we?”

Alex Reagan knows voices, and she knows how people speak, and she knows when they’re doing something as a feint, and what Charlie does next has all of the earmarks of one, which blows, however gently on the dying embers of Alex’s anger. “Oh right, yes. We were talking about who would want to invite demons into a church. Who indeed? Definitely the same sort of person who would invite them into a nursery, don’t you think? Who would do that?” 

“The Order of the Cenophus?” Alex asks, but it’s not really all that much of a question. “They’ve got agents in churches too?” 

“Where else would a cult have them? Where else to get access to all of those silly little children who aren’t really scared of demons and ghosts anymore?” Charlie’s voice is losing some of the playfulness in it to an edge, and it worries Alex. She can’t help it. “But you already know that. Father Vincent would have told you that. But Alex, you should tell me why.” 

“Why?” Her voice is sharp but high. “Does there really need to be a why to it? Isn’t it just terrible people doing terrible things in the name of like causing the end of the world? That’s why they’re after me now.” 

“Oh, _we_ ,” There’s an emphasis on the word that comes with another subtle tightening of Charlie’s hand around her throat. “Are definitely after you, Alex. Have been since you thought you spared poor little Sebastian from sharing the same fate as the rest of us.” 

Charlie’s bringing up Sebastian forces something into Alex, well, more than one something. Fear mixes with anger in a cocktail that tends to make Alex do stupid things and she knows it. Hell, she’s still in the midst of the last stupid things that she’s done and now she’s just going to add to the pile, digging herself in deeper. “What the hell do you mean, I thought?! I have destroyed my entire life to save him!” Despite what Alex might want to believe, she knows that even with this knowledge, even with _all of this_ happening, she’d still would have gone into that building to save him. She still would have gone through the barrier. It was the only good that was to have come out of this. 

“Oh, and you did, for a little while. Saved him from Brother Edward’s grubby little hands. I should thank you for that, Alex. I never liked that skeevy little man.” Charlie’s grin is too wide as she leans and whispers, “someday we’ll need to have a chat just what his final moments were like, Alex Reagan. I hope they were as terrible as yours will be.” 

“God!” Alex just hisses the word, and it’s a curse, not a plea for something like divine intervention. “Do you have to be so damned creepy?! I’m already scared out of my mind, you don’t need to add fucking some villian moustashe twirling shit on top of it!” 

Charlie just laughs softly, a huffy sort of laugh that Alex recognizes from the times she’s made Father Strand laugh when he doesn’t expect to. When she pulls back, Charlie looks entirely _delighted_. “Oh look how interesting you are, Alex. Even so afraid I can hear it in your pulse, and you say something like that. I wish it had been my job to get you. We could have had such _fun_ together.” 

“Whose job was it to ‘get me?’” Oh yes, those are definitely scare quotes of her own. “And what the hell happened to Sebastian?!” 

“Oh come on Alex, I know you’re not an idiot, despite how many bad decisions you make, and how you downplay your intelligence to be an every man on your show.” Charlie’s voice hardens a bit, and her eyes narrowed as she just grips Alex’s chin, forcing her to hold the demon’s black gaze. “You’re letting yourself be lesser for the stupid crowd, and I wouldn’t force you to do that.” 

“You don’t get to have a say in anything I do. Now stop fucking around and playing twenty questions like a god damn kid and just give me a straight answer on _something._ ” What goes unsaid, but not unheard in Alex’s statement is the plea for ‘anything’ there. 

“Well,” Charlie’s voice just drawls, and she almost looks contrite. “I suppose if you’re going to spoil my fun, Alex….” Alex is fairly certain that Charlie is having more fun than ever at her expense, and it’s a thought that’s bolstered by the fact that the fingers on Alex’s throat are moving in soft, tight circles against her skin. 

“You had saved Sebastian Torres in the past sense. But what Brother Edward had done to him left him open. It was frighteningly easy for someone to get close to him and reintroduce him to the demon that he gets to host.”

Alex goes paler below her foundation, and she swallows against Charlie’s hand, but anger mixes with her fear when she spits back, “host. That seems like a pretty nice word for whatever you’ve got going on right now, _Charlie._ ”

“Oh Alex, put away your claws or else you’re going to make me get out mine and I can guarantee you won’t be fond of what comes next. You’d hate for me to start picking apart your relationship with Uncle Richie, now would you?”

“What? Have you been _spying_ on us?” Alex’s voice is more fear than fury now, but both are in attendance and on display for Charlie. 

“Of course we have.” It’s as casual as a coffee order, that response but Charlie’s accompanied grin definitely is not. “We’re always watching _you_ , Alex.”

“Me? Not the man who can stop you? Why me?”

“Are you really all that sure he _wants_ to stop us, Alex Regan?” There’s something in her voice that makes Alex terrified, washing out every other emotion other than fear. 

“Yes.” But she’s not, and that hesitant note is in Alex’s voice whether she likes it or not. 

“Do you know what the Order of the Ceonophus symbol looks like, Alex?” It’s a question that Alex just shakes her head in response to and Charlie grins again and raises her hand from Alex’s wrist to the level of her eye, twisting it so that the outside is easily viewed. “It’s an upside down face. Eyes where the mouth should be, mouth where the eyes should be. A subverting of humanity’s face and of heaven’s blah blah blah.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” Alex’s voice is flat and cold. 

“I told you, Alex. We’ve been watching you. We’ve _seen_ you. And we know what you’re going to do now.” Alex opens her mouth to protest, but Charlie continues anyway, before she can. “Oh, you can deny it, but we know you. The wise thing to do would be to run home to Seattle and beg Tannis Braun to help you. And you know that he would. He would move heaven and earth to help you. But you’ve never been wise Alex, and that’s why we’re here.” 

There’s something in Charlie’s voice that makes Alex wonder if she almost sort of hopes that running home and to Nic and Tannis is what Alex will choose to do. But she’s not wrong—they both know that Alex won’t. That she _can’t_. That she needs to see this through to the end. Even if the end is starting to look, well ...not very good. 

Charlie clearly sees the resolve etch itself into Alex’s features and she sighs softly. “Remember this, Alex Reagan. Remember that I gave you the chance and the warning before you went and did something else stupid. This is a rabbit hole you don’t want to go any further down.” Leaning over, Charlie just presses her lips gently to Alex’s before she whispers against them: “don’t be a bunny, Alex. Bunnies are no fun.” 

And then before Alex can reply, Charlie slams her head back against the brick wall, leaving Alex dazedly watching as Charlie just appears to disappear. 

When the world comes back to Alex it’s all at once and reflexively she groans and presses her hand to the back of her head. When her fingers come away clean and she can stand up without the world tilting dangerously on its axis Alex just rushes back inside the coffee shop to pack up her thankfully untouched possessions and she just assumes that if she’s dealing with a demon and has stigmata then the world has got to balance out in some way, and she’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth that all of her things are still present. 

The urge to dial Nic is a reflex one as Alex hustles out of the coffee shop, but she can’t act on it not right now. (There’s a voice inside her head that’s at least her own when it says that she may not ever be able to call him again that she ignores as hard as she possibly can. Nic will forgive her. He always does.) Instead, she just unlocks the rental car and speaks to her phone. “Siri, I need the number for Three Rivers Psychiatric Hospital.” 

Simon Reese wants to see her, and she’s going to give him what she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Demon lady hot.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Charlie Strand (and the demon inside of her) leave a questioning Alex on the ground, Alex Reagan goes to the one person who she thinks might have answers: Simon Reese.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey. After so long, I've definitely finished this fic and I'm pretty proud of it honestly. I'm going to throw up the remaining chapters over the next few days! Thanks so much for everyone who has come on this journey with me, and I hope you're gonna stick around to the end!

The drive to Three Rivers is a nerve wracking one, and after the third time her phone rings, she just sends it to do not disturb. Paul, Terry and her mother have called her, letting her know that the fact that she quit is common knowledge. Given Alex’s relationships with well, everyone at Pacific Northwest Stories, she’s quite certain that this is only the start of the Alex come home phone calls that she can expect. The last thing that Alex wants to do is to explain her decision over and over, especially when the ground that the decision is based upon feels like it’s plywood built on top of shifting sands. Shifting sands and the belief in someone who she doesn’t know if she can trust anymore. The thought makes something deep inside Alex hurt, the deep sort of ache that comes with a damned near mortal blow, and she would know. The hurt is there in her side, pulling like a new scar stretched too tightly. 

Besides, Alex already made the phone call that she’s needed to make: she called to figure out how to get into see Simon the fastest. Of course, being told that she’s been on Simon’s accepted visitor list (which only he can add someone too) since the day after Sebastian isn’t something that Alex particularly wants to think about. She hadn’t met Strand at that point, and the story hadn’t even come out to a general audience yet. At least not with her name attached. That had happened at the press conference a day later. 

But Simon knew. And she doesn’t want to think about _why_ he knew. Even though the answer was one that she’d received already. 

It takes her longer than she expects to go through security and in the end, the hospital doesn’t allow her to bring anything with her. Not her notebook and pen and definitely not her recorder. When she’s shown into the visitor room, Alex just sits in one of the hard plastic chairs and her fingers twitch. This place, this whole damned visit are combining two things she hates most in the world, demons and psychiatric hospitals and Alex is desperately trying not to think of it as she stares at the walls with their cheerful watercolor prints that lose some of the effect when she considers the thick plastic over the top of them and how they’re bolted to the walls. 

“Hello Alex.” The familiarity with which Simon greets her takes Alex by surprise as it pulls her from her thoughts and she fixes her eyes at him over the rim of her glasses. Studying him as he comes closer to her, flanked by guards on either side, Alex attempts desperately to find some difference between what he looks like here and what he looked like when he’d appeared in her car. It’s unnerving that there isn’t, and even more unnerving is the intensity with which his eyes focus on her. There’s something in them and Alex can’t help but to think it’s a mix of pity and hope. 

Alex doesn’t particularly like either of them. “Hello Simon. You wanted to see me so here I am.” Simon doesn’t even blink at the brisk voice that Alex uses, and he doesn’t say anything in response to that, leaving Alex to huff a little bit before she tries again. “You don’t seem surprised that I’m here without Father Strand.”

“I’m not.” His voice is slightly unnerving and Alex just fidgets with her fingers before he adds: “how’s your head?”

“ _What_?” Alex can’t help but stare at him as he subtly mirrors the way that she had rubbed the back of it after Charlie. “How do you know about that?!” When Simon just looks at her as if she said something stupid, Alex whispers angrily. “So you’re watching me too? Jesus. Can’t I have a day where I don’t have someone creepy informing me that they’re watching every damned move I make?!”

“They’ve been watching you for months now, Alex. Of course they’re not going to stop. Everything that you do just makes it so that you’re brighter. A light in the darkness like she said. They’re moths, Alex and you are the flame. They can’t help but to watch you. And they can’t help but to wait.”

“Wait? What the hell are they waiting for me to do?” 

“You know that, Alex. You’ve known since before Strand told you. You’ve known since before I mentioned doors. You’ve known since you woke up in the hospital with a wound that should have killed you. I think perhaps you’ve always known. If he had known what you are then he would have answered your calls long ago.”

“He? He who? You’re talking about Father Strand. But he’s trying to save me. Like he saved you.” There is a tone in Alex’s voice that is not at all sure about that anymore and it surprises even herself. 

But not Simon. He just stares at her with her uncanny eyes before she fills the silence with another question. “You’d believed he was helping you for eight years, Simon. What changed?”

“What changed, Alex?” He just asks her and there’s something of a dismissal in his voice and the pointed stare in her direction. 

“ _Me_? You’re talking about me. _I changed it?_ ”

“No. He changed it but you were the catalyst. You’re drawing back the veil. And the veil between worlds, Alex. It’s not just for me. You’re doing it for _everyone_.”

“I’m not going to open the door for the demons, Simon.” There’s a firmness in her voice that she believes in with her entire heart. 

“Doors work more than one way when you have the key, Alex.”

“Are you saying that I can close the doors? Like permanently? So that no one would ever need to deal with demons again?” There’s a hopeful note in Alex’s voice that she hates, but it’s there and he sees it. 

“Nothing is ever permanent, Alex. But yes, you can close them for a time. It won’t harm the demons already in our world but it would stop more of them from entering.”

“How many are here? In our world I mean?”

“You want to know how many there are?” Simon asks with a look and a certainty that makes her want to punch him. “Or do you want to know how many are around you?”

“Alright, Simon.” Alex just sighs softly, partly in anger and partly in fear of Simon’s answer. “ _How many are around me now_?”

“A countless number. And more every minute. They’re being drawn to you and will keep being drawn to you, even if you close the door.”

Alex just shivers as she gives a quick look around the room, seeing shadows that are too many and too large to be people in the quiet visiting room. The urge to flee rises like the bile to her back of her throat but she swallows quickly. “Tell me how to close the doors, Simon.”

Something shifts in Simon, and Alex can see it. His shoulders tense and drop lower, and he leans forward. The handcuffs on his wrists are the only thing keeping him tethered to the table and Alex knows it as she sits back. “ _How. She wants to know how._ ” The voice sounds like Simon’s but one that’s overlaid on top of something else. Something deeper. The lights in the room flicker for a second, almost so subtly that she doesn’t think that anyone notices but the change in the room is one that she can feel. 

Pain starts to radiate from her hands and her side, moving upwards and out like someone had poured a can of gas on a light match and it makes her gasp loudly. For a moment, Simon’s voice is Simon’s alone and he sounds _desperate_. “You already know, Alex. You’ve always known.”

But the overlay comes again. “ **You don’t know anything. You’re just a scared little pawn playing at forces you don’t understand.** ” The chain on the handcuff clinks against the table as the links are pulled taut and the lights flicker again, this time lasting longer. People around her gasp and others laugh. The laughter doesn’t belong to anyone in the room but Alex can hear it just as well as she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. 

For a moment, Simon’s eyes look black and cold before they clear and he just looks like he’s in pain. “Get out of here, Alex Reagan. I can’t hold him for long.”

It’s on Alex’s lips to question, to ask the things that she normally would, but the pain and the ever shifting from gray to black and back again kill the words in her lungs before she can breathe them. The room is suddenly plunged into pitch darkness, and Alex knocks her chair over in her haste to scramble out of it and away from Simon Reese. She moves slowly at first, trying to be silent, but the terrible wrenching sound of twisting metal forces her muscles to move faster as Alex knows that the cuffs weren’t containing the thing inside Simon’s body anymore. There’s an unexpected flash of light and Alex races for it as quickly as she can, but she can still feel something cold touch her hair, pulling it in an effort to stop her. Survival instincts kick in, and Alex lets Simon just tear the patch from her head before she shoves her way past the orderlies rushing in and out into the hall. 

As soon as the door slams shut between them, Alex can see the lights in the room return, and the scene inside is like something out of her nightmares. It’s pandemonium in that room, and Simon’s face is bloody as it’s pressed against the enforced glass of the window. Bloody hand marks mash against the glass again and again as she can see the boy’s small form being lifted and drawn back. It takes three orderlies to finally pull him away from the door and Alex is reminded of seeing what she saw of Jessica Wheldon’s exorcism. The strength that she had and the noises that she’d made linger in Alex’s memory but this time it’s not just random sounds that Simon’s making. No, if it was random sounds it would be easier somehow. Instead it’s the chant of her full name over and over again that chases Alex Reagan down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After that terrible meeting with Simon, Alex Reagan does what she does best: investigates and in doing so uncovers the truth/

Alex only stopped on her way out of the hospital to grab her phone and her car keys, otherwise she probably wouldn’t even have paused in her haste to get out into the brightness of the sunlight. The darkness of the place almost seems to linger, following after her like a mad dog who’s giving chase by nipping at her heels. Even in the fullness of the sunlight, the hunted feeling doesn’t leave Alex, and she can’t help but to wonder if it ever will again. Closing her eyes and turning her face to the sun, Alex lets out a little whimper, trying to release the panic into the crisp breeze that’s billowing around her. It helps a little bit to stave off the panic, but adrenaline and fear are still racing through her veins in an effort to claim her for one or the other. But Alex is determined not to let them. She can’t get carried away by them, because she knows that if she does, then she’s not going to be able to do what she needs to do. 

Finally Alex squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. The therapist in Seattle that she’d first started seeing for PTSD after Sebastian had taught her how to use square breathing and things that she could see and feel to ground herself in the face of a flashback, and even though this isn’t in the past and still has the very real chance to hurt her, it helps now. 

Leaning against her rental car, Alex’s fingers are trembling too much to manually search for the number to the Sagamore, so she needs to have Siri both figure it out and dial it. There’s a cultured sounding voice on the other end, and Alex is relieved when her voice can still manage to sound professional, despite the fear in which she’s basically huddling in the rental car like it can offer her some sort of protection. “Hello, yes. I’m trying to reach an employee of yours. This is her sister. It’s kind of an emergency, can you please put me through to the personnel department.” It’s only the urgency in her voice that makes the clerk connect her, and Alex knows it--otherwise they would have made her dial a different number. 

“The Hotel Sagamore Personnel Department. How may I direct your call?” The voice on the other end sounds snooty, and bored, and Alex knows how well that particularly combination worked. Mostly it didn’t, but she doesn’t have the time to play games with whoever is on the other end. 

“Hello, yes. I’m sorry to bother you.” It never hurts to be a little polite, even with how important Alex knows what she’s saying is. “My name is Alex Wheldon, and I’m looking for my sister Jessica. There’s been a fire, and I don’t have access to my actual phone with my numbers in it right now. Please, is there any way you could connect for me? Please?” Desperation is there lining each word like a breath and there’s a confused pause before the person responds. 

“Please hold.” The hold time is a long time, and it feels like even longer for Alex as she stares at the hospital in front of her. A part of her that Alex once would have called ‘irrational’ almost feels like it’s watching her, but right now it doesn’t feel irrational. It feels like a certainty. Letting the car run so that she can try and keep warm, Alex just plugs her phone in and waits and waits and waits. 

“Ms. Wheldon?” The voice on the other end is one that normally has authority and Alex can tell, but whoever it is is trying to temper that with concern.

“Yes. Hello. Did you find my sister?” 

The woman’s confusion is evident before she speaks. “Ms. Wheldon, I’m very sorry I thought you knew. Your sister hasn’t been here in a week. Most of her belongings are still in her room, but she went missing during her shift. Your mother didn’t tell you?”

“No. No. We’re estranged. But Jessica has been missing for a week? Are the police involved?” 

“Of course they are. They are behaving discreetly on the matter, of course, but they are investigating. May I give you Detective Maxwell's number? He’s the lead on the case and I’m sure he’d be glad to talk to you.” 

Alex doesn’t bother to take down the number, or to make any efforts to try and talk to the detective. There’s no point to it, not when Alex has more than a little bit of a suspicion of what happened. Jessica Wheldon had been important some how--the stigmata or her dreams or _something_ had shown her that, and she’d trusted Father Strand to know what he was talking about. And now Jessica was gone in the same way that Charlie Strand is, and if what Simon was saying was true, there’s every chance that she’s going to be on her way here now. 

Just like it seemed like every other fucking demon was. Because of course they were.

Wanting to call Nic or Tannis is like a reflex, but Alex knows that if they get involved, they’re going to get hurt. Nic was only involved the slightest bit, and Tannis Braun had been there and told her that it was bad, but she’d ignored him. No, he wouldn’t be able to stand and fight like Alex knows that she’s going to need to be able to do. 

But she’s not without options. Father Vincent tried to warn her. Maybe he has some idea of what to do next because for all of Simon’s saying that she knows what to do, she doesn’t have a fucking clue. Pulling up the number for the care home where they’d visited him, Alex dials the number for the nursing supervisor that the woman had pressed into her hand after Vincent had attacked her. When the woman on the other end answers, Alex tries to keep the desperation from her voice when she speaks. “Hi. This is Alex Reagan, I visited Father Vincent last month and was wondering if he’s up to visitors again?”

The woman’s voice on the other end is deeply sympathetic. “I’m sorry Ms. Reagan. I had thought that you had been informed already. Father Vincent had a heart attack the night of your visit. He passed quietly in his sleep. We called Father Strand and he said that he would inform you.”

“He died that night? From a heart attack?” Alex’s voice sounds hollow as she repeats the woman’s words back to her as if doing so would magically make it so that it somehow wasn’t true even though everything inside of her knows that it is. Father Vincent died directly after warning her about Strand. She can’t help but to think that it’s connected and it’s another lead that she’d missed because of how blindly she had trusted him. “When did you inform Father Strand of Father Vincent’s passing?” Honestly Alex is relieved that she sounds more close to normal on that question. 

“We informed him the next evening when we sent along the package that Father Vincent had made up for you. Didn’t you get it? We went it in care of Father Strand.”

“No.” The sinking feeling is back in Alex and reflexively she reaches up to touch the collar around her throat. It feels hot against her fingers when she says. “He didn’t give it to me.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Reagan. Maybe it we lost in the post?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Only Alex very much doubts that it was. Placing her phone into the council, Alex throws the car into drive. She needs to find that package, she knows she does and there’s only one place that it could be. 

“Are you alright? Is there anyone I can call for you?”

“I’m fine. Thank you, sister. I’m going to go talk to Father Strand about this and see if he knows.”

“If you’re sure. I’ll…” the woman’s hesitation is obvious as Alex pulls into traffic. “I’ll pray for you, Alex.”

“Thanks. I think I need it.” Hanging up without a goodbye isn’t really Alex’s style but she does it anyway as she punches the gps coordinates for the church into her gps. Her hands are burning and so is her chest as she drives far too fast along the back roads, following them quickly. 

Without even thinking about it, Alex’s hands scramble for the necklace around her throat. For some reason she can’t undo the clasp. Not even when she pulls over and tries both of them she can’t get it to budge at all. The panic rises in her again and Alex just pulls at the fragile links of the chain but they don’t budge. Even when she stops at the hardware store for pliers (a move that is costing her precious time and Alex can feel every second slipping through her fingers) she still can’t get the fucking thing off. _’The family collar_ ’ is what Charlie had called it and right now Alex feels like it is with more certainty with every passing minute. 

Desperation to know overrides the desperation to get it off, and Alex is racing the clock in order to get back to the church. Father Strand is supposed to be in meetings with the dioscise all day and she doesn’t know how much time she has left that those meetings are going to take up his focus. Answers are something that she desperately needs and the gut that she normally trusts (and that has been surprisingly quiet this whole fucking time) is telling her that she’s going to find them at the rectory. 

Thankfully when Alex gets to the church it’s quiet and she doesn’t spot any of the sisters who serve as Strand’s assistants. It makes sense that they would be at the meetings too but Alex is still as quiet as possible as she heads up the stairs into Father Strand’s bedroom. Despite how careful the two of them were trying to be with keeping things secret, Alex can smell her familiar perfume as she opens the door. Nausea rolls in her stomach and she needs to clamp her lips around it. There’s no time to feel sickened by the ever growing certainty that he’s been manipulating her _this entire fucking time._ But the thought is there in the back of her mind as Alex starts growing through his dresser drawers. 

At first the search is careful, and Alex puts everything back in the same way that she found it but as time grows short, Alex can feel desperation setting in. It’s in the bedside drawer that she’d almost missed that Alex finds the evidence that she’d been looking for. A familiar and brightly colored bit of green fabric catches her eye and when she pulls out the familiar scarf that she’d thought that she’d lost (which is far too stiff and it doesn’t leave anything to the imagination of what it was used for) there’s a solid sound of metal falling onto the carpet. 

For a moment Alex just stares at the familiar silver chain that’s curled on the floor like a serpent. ‘ _Promise me you won’t ever take it off, Alex._ ’ Tannis’ voice rings in her ears and Aex hasn’t. But she’d lost it the night that Father Strand had come to wake her from the nightmare that she’d had. She’d lost it the first time he’d taken her into his arms and it didn’t take a genius to figure out just _how_ she had lost it. The chain is whole when she picks it up and without thinking about it Alex just throws it over her neck. 

The coldness of the silver burns against the desperate scratches that Alex had made trying to remove her collar and it burns where the two meet, but somehow it feels a little safer to have it on. Despite wanting to call Tannis she doesn’t, and instead just sits on the bed for a moment, her hand clasped around the protection symbol as she silently prays. The box that the sister sent isn’t here, and she needs to know where it is. Honestly, she’s praying to that he didn’t destroy it when Alex Reagan gets an idea. 

But her rushing from the room is stopped when she notices that something else has fallen from the drawer when she had withdrawn the scarf. It’s small and it’s silver and at first Alex had assumed that it was a piece of the protection amulet that he’d broken off. But there’s tarnish around the edges, giving the circle about the size of a half dollar an ancient sort of look, and when Alex picks it up, she can see the marks that someone had placed within it when they had forged it with a hammer. The metal is hot, and her hands scream in pain, even through the gloves she’s wearing as she closes her fingers around it. 

Despite already knowing what it is, _what it has to be_ , Alex Reagan turns the coin over and gasps. There, crudely hewn into the ancient silver is a face. A face where the eyes are where the mouth should be and the mouth is where the eyes should be. Around the edges there are what Alex knows to be cuneiform symbols etched there, forming a ring. She doesn’t know what they say, but every part of Alex is screaming that this is bad and she needs to get the hell out of here. Dropping the coin heedlessly on the floor, she turns and starts to flee from it. 

At this point, Alex is unable to tell if it’s divine intervention, logic or just her gut but she remembers the locked drawer in Strand’s office. Thundering quickly down the stairs and into it, she pointedly doesn’t look at her watch. At this point, Alex rationalizes, there’s no time or reason to be subtle about this and she doesn’t bother to look for keys. Her parents had a desk like his since she was a kid and Alex is well aware of how to get into it without one. Picking up Strand’s overly sharp and ornate letter opener, she just flicks it between the polished wood and the lock. It takes a moment and some wiggling, but the lock comes undone. On the top of the drawer there’s some files, but Alex doesn’t do anymore but look at the names on the tabs as she drops them on the desk. They all seem to be normal: church costs, plans for confirmations and baptisms, notes from the church deacons. Rationalizing that she’d go over them after, when she comes to the bottom of the files Alex finds what she’s looking for: a small white and blue post office mailer that has her name on it, with the care of Father Richard Strand below it but above the address. 

The seal on the box is broken, but when Alex opens it, two things come out: a letter written in a clumsy hand and an antique black and gold rosary, that she’s quite sure was in Father Vincent’s hand when she’d seen him last. Taking both the letter and the rosary, Alex hastily throws the files back into the drawer and shuts it before she flees his office and the rectory at an almost run. Reading it there seems unwise and instead Alex just flees to the sanctuary of the church before she sits in a pew and opens the letter on its thin piece of stationary. The writing on it is chicken scratch and Alex can tell that it was scrawled in a hasty hand but she can’t help but snort bitterly at the first line. 

_My dearest Alex,_

_I am aware that time is short and I must be brief. Richard has brought you before me as a lamb goes before a judge before the slaughter and he sought confirmation that I’d given him. I’m sorry for that, had I known then what I know now I would never have breathed the words stigmata. But where Richard and his ilk are wrong is that it’s nothing in your blood or your bloodline. You chose this when you put the safety of the boy before you put the safety of yourself. That choice is always in us, Alex Reagan and you made it. You made it so now God has chosen you as a vessel through which to do His work._

_Richard Strand and his faith and intelligence are seductive, Alex, in the same way that Lucifer’s are. Already he is using them against you. But he does not believe in what you and I believe in. He would willingly sacrifice this world and everyone in it for power. I believe that he has already done this with his own niece in order to prove his allegiance to the Dark Ones. I was searching for proof after poor Jessica Wheldon but instead of being able to find it, I was called mad and sent here. I escaped a darker fate for my interference once and I’m not foolish enough to think I will do so a second time._

_I know that I will not last the night. Already the darkness of the demons surround me and I can feel Richard’s anger guiding their hands. Do not feel guilt for this, Alex Reagan. I stood against these things all my life and it was only natural that they should be my end. It was always coming for me and now after so many years of waiting it has come._

_But you must remember that he is not your friend. Richard is not someone who loves you or who knows how to love. Like Satan, he knows how to mimic that love and there will come a time soon when he will ask you to perform a ritual for him using the love that you have for him. Do not blame yourself for that either, Alex. I loved him as a son before I learned of his true nature. But you must not do as he asks. If you do, our entire world and all of the souls in it are doomed. _

_When the time comes, you will know what to do in order to stop it. The Holy Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit will tell you what you need to do. Do not hesitate, Alex, for the darkness within him will not and he will use you for the ritual one way or another._

_I am going to seal this letter along with my blessings on it and my rosary for you. No one at the hospital will open it, for it will be sealed with the sign of the confessional. I trust that God will see it into your hands. The burden that he has placed on you is a difficult one my child, but I know that you will see it through._

_Remember Alex, that the dark is always the harshest and most dangerous just before the dawn. You carry the light of the dawn within you, my child. You have the force of will to stop this. But it is a choice that you and you alone are able to make._

_Go with God and His blessings, my child. I absolve you of your sins and trust that you are going to save us._

_~Father Peter Vincent._

Alex just reads the letter over and over, her fingers moving along the beads of the rosary in her other hand mouthing prayers that she’d thought she’d long since forgotten. But in the end it’s all that she can do to lay her head down and sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are life. We are 100% damned near done with this thing guys, and it is going to be amazing. And terrible. But mostly terrible.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After that disastrous meeting with Simon at Three Rivers, Fred Barnes calls and alerts Father Strand to that fact, and Father Strand tries to push Alex until she breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have 110% had a terrible terrible day, and because I have had such a terrible day, I am spreading some goodness to you guys. So in short: I'm going to upload all of the remaining chapters of this story right now! Thanks for all the comments and kudos, seriously. 
> 
> This has never been a light fic, but this chapter starts to get particularly dark with Father Strand actually showing his monstrous side to Alex. I mean, you guys know he has one, but it's 100% evident here.
> 
> I need to thank my lovely wife @nerdyvixen for supporting me in this fic, and for making me resort to it as bribery so I would write it, my ET Bri for all of the catholic checking and support, folks on tumblr who were so into this idea, and all of you for commenting, kudoing and just having love for this fic. It's been a long dark ride, and I hope you've enjoyed it so far and that it's satisfying to come to an end.

For Richard Strand the most boring and distasteful part of his being a priest doesn’t come in the form of what someone might think. Confession, meeting with the sick or couples, last rites, baptisms and the like were fine as he’d always had a fascination for people and how they formulated their beliefs. But the diocese and their never ending meetings tried his patience in a way that few things did. Budgets, membership pushes, falling numbers, concerns about how the church appears to the general public, those were always the parts of his duty that made him sigh. In the end, they were meaningless and a waste of his time. Especially now. 

Alex Reagan is nearly ready to open the door. Once the door is open and the ending begins then none of anything that these weak little men are going to do is going to matter. Sitting back a bit in the stiff chair that the bishop always insisted that Strand sit in (at his right hand and as uncomfortable as _hell. Oh purpose. Pompous blowhard._ ) Richard allows his thoughts to drift away from the facts and figures that people are droning on about and instead towards the beautiful woman whom he has waiting on him at home. Honestly, when Strand had been assigned to bring her into the fullness of her powers, he had no idea what a truly diverting and rewarding task it would be. Honestly, in more than a few ways, he’s thankful to The Dark Mother for putting her in his path and in his bed. 

If he were alone, Richard would stretch out his abilities and see what his Alex was doing at this very moment. He’s not a demon—he can’t be with the guise that he needs to keep up—but he is still granted certain abilities and now it is difficult to miss the light of Alex Reagan no matter where she is. Besides, she’d told him where she was going this morning when he’d kissed her goodbye: she was going to go to a coffee shop and attempt to get some research done for both the show and her predicament. 

What Alex didn’t say is how isolated that she feels—he knows and that’s part of the _point._ Perhaps it’s time to take steps in order to sever her connection with anyone else more permanently. All it would take is a subtle call in the direction of the PNWS studios direction mentioning some sort of increasing emotional instability and violent frame of mind and they would try and recall her. Alex, of course would see such a thing as a betrayal and being as her friendship with Silver is already on shaky ground, this would permanently harm it. 

Knowing that Ruby has had such a thing ready for _weeks_ now, Richard removes his phone and texts her, telling her to make the call. Of course, in taking out his phone, Strand is also alerted to the six calls that he’s missed. Missing calls for him isn’t normally a large thing—he does have duties to perform after all—but the fact that all of them have come from the office of Fred Barnes at Three Rivers is concerning to say the least. Clearly his throat softly, Strand just rises to his feet. “Please forgive me, Your Excellency, I have an energy that requires my immediate and full attention.”

“This is highly irregular, Richard! You know how important these meetings are!”

“Of course, Excellency,” _you pompous, self-righteous old blow hard_ , he mentally adds. “And I would not dream of interrupting them were it not for something that our Father himself has charged me with.” For a moment, Strand’s cold blue eyes meet the runny, watery eyes of the older man and Richard can see the fear in them. Bishop Anderson has always been frightened of demons, never quite thinking that his faith would be strong enough to stand against them. They wouldn’t of course, and Richard is looking forward to watching the good bishop’s soul being devoured in person. As always, Anderson’s the one who blinks first, and he just looks away and nods, releasing Richard with a quick wave of his fingers. 

Bowing as he exits the meeting room, the phone is in Richard’s hand and presses to his ear even before he’s down the hall. The messages are dire and not what he’d expected at all. Alex— _his Alex_ — has taken the initiative to go and see Simon without him and there was an incident. Simon Reese has always been a ticking time bomb but he has chosen a damn inconvenient time to go off. Still, Alex’s power and love for him have grown to such a state that she is ready to complete the ritual and Strand is certain of its success even if the timetable has been moved up on it. He’s quite certain that his true masters will be ecstatic over such a development. 

Despite what Simon has done (and Richard is furious, and the boy will be _punished severely_ for this) he knows that Alex is going to trust him and not the word of a deeply disturbed child. Lies spin easily through Strand’s mind, coming so quickly that they could even have been true: _Simon is jealous of your spending time with me so he is lashing out to hurt me, Alex. And he knows that making you lose faith in me would hurt me most of all!_ But whatever else, he knows that Alex hadn’t fled in the face of all of this—she’s there at the church where she belongs. 

Strand doesn’t bother to call for Alex when he enters the rectory, instead he makes his way up the stairs calmly to his bedroom. His face is fixed so that he looks as if he has no idea what has happened, because he’s expecting to see the Light sitting there in bed reading. Or pacing perhaps. What he doesn’t expect—and never could really—is the state of the room that her enters. It doesn’t quite look as if a hurricane hit it, but when you are a man as meticulous as Father Richard Strand is, the slightly askew drawers might as well be one. The green of Alex’s scarf on the floor accuses him like a snake, and anger starts to tremble within him. 

Despite the fact that the door is open to his office, Strand doesn’t bother to enter it. If the door is open, then Alex has already found the letter and he knows it. That isn’t to say that he goes directly to the church where he knows that she’s waiting. No, he makes a stop first in the dining room. There, hidden by the rest of the silver is a long knife. The knife is roughly honed and the handle of it is a stone so old Strand doesn’t know if it even has a name. The knife has been a family heirloom and he’d held it as he carved the symbols into his niece’s chest. 

If Alex Reagan won’t open the door one way, then she damned will open it another. 

Secreting the knife and its sheaf at his back, Strand moves towards the church, entering it via the door closest to the rectory. The dim shadows in the church allow him to see his Alex kneeling in the front pew; and her head is bowed. The darkness allows him to move silently as he works his way to the back of the church, locking each door to the sanctuary as he went. He can’t have his Alex trying to do something stupid like running away, now can he? As each door closed and sealed, more and more shadows fill the knave, and even he can feel the oppressive darkness forming around the outside of it like a ring. 

 

Still, when he finally enters, walking down the main aisle of the church, there’s a practiced and welcome smile on his face, and there’s no sign of distrust in his eyes as he moves to her. Alex isn’t paying attention from the way that she jumps when he touches her shoulder. 

“Oh my god, Father! You scared me to death!” Strand can see that Alex is putting up a valiant effort to seem normal but the fear wafting from her is delicious and sweet and he leans over to kiss her, tasting her lips and that rapid beating of her heart. When she kisses back, Strand knows it’s a reflex but he smiles into the kiss anyway. With his fingers tangling into her hair, he deepens the kiss, and he can feel the heat in Alex’s hands like a brand against his chest. 

It must be hurting her severely to do it, but he swallows her pain too, and it gives her fear spice. 

Keeping his forehead pressed against her own, Strand speaks softly and gently, desire and what passes as love in his voice. “I missed you today, my Alex. Did you get anything done?”

Alex is struggling to keep things normal in her voice and he can hear the crinkle of the paper that he knows is Vincent’s note in her hand. Lying doesn’t come easy to her, but she puts up a valiant effort anyway. “Oh. You know. Just the usual.” Following it with a nervous laugh, Alex just adds. “I’m waiting for a call from Nic so….”

She’s not. They both know it. Alex Reagan is attempting to buy time and Strand is content to allow her to play her little game. 

“Alright.” The word comes softly as he traces his lips over her jaw line, leaving a little bit that makes her tremble. The smell of another causes his anger to burn, but the scent is familiar. _Oh, Charlie._ He thinks quickly, _You’re not going to get away with touching what’s mine_. But he doesn’t mention it. Instead, Father Strand just pushes her, trying to see how far she’s willing to go in order to keep up this little charade of hers. 

“There’s something that I want to do, Alex. That is if you’ll let me.”

Alex is still fighting her fear and the base level of arousal that he’s inspired in her since the start. “Of course Father. What is it?”

“Come with me.” Strand takes her hand despite the pain that it causes both of them, and Alex pales a little more and Richard can feel the trembling in her becoming more pronounced. There’s a soft sound as she drops the wadded up paper when he pulls her to her feet. The darker part of him wants to push her on it, to ask if it’s important but he waits. No, it’s not time for that particular conversation. Not yet. He’s going to allow Alex to start it when she gets to her breaking point. 

Leading her up the steps to the nearly naked altar, Alex finally makes a sound of protest when he lifts her and places her onto the top of the ornate and cool marble. “What are you doing?” The fear is there in her voice and Strand catches that with a deep and harsh kiss too. 

“Worshiping you, my Alex.” The sound is a whisper, but the ornately carved arches around it make the sound carry through the church. The echoes of it are unearthly as the chorus of demons pick them up and he can hear the laughter as he leans over her, kissing her deeply as she moves backwards. 

The kiss goes on for far longer than he’d expected, and his body is grinding against Alex’s for friction and relief. Her desire mixes with her fear and it’s the best thing that Strand ever tasted. 

But then the moment is broken when Alex shoves him roughly away from her and just yells “no!”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh. You think you can _save me_. You think you can appeal to me with love and a happy ever after. _This isn’t that kind of story, Alex Reagan_. It never was."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I just want to remind people: not a light fic, and as this is the confrontation chapter, it's violent and dark. 
> 
> But also hopefully satisfying.

“No!” Alex yells the word and she means it as she shoves Strand away from her. There’s parts of her heart, parts that want to believe in him or at least the him that she _thought_ Father Strand was. It was a lie and a figment of her imagination and it _fucking hurts_ but Alex can’t go on with this farce anymore. “Don’t touch me!” The words are sharp when he comes close to her again. 

“Alex,” his voice is soft and laced with concern as he looks at her, and Alex herself can feel the demons around them tittering with laughter. “What is it? What’s the matter? Have I hurt you in some way? Is everything alright?”

“ _Don’t_.” Alex’s voice is cold and sharp and it rings easily through the church. “Don’t pretend to be concerned about me. Don’t pretend to love me. I know, Strand. I know what you are and everything you’ve done. I know what happened to Charlie and Simon and Jessica Wheldon and to Father Vincent. And poor Sebastian Torres! I know what you’ve been doing to me!”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, my Alex. What has happened to cause you to doubt me so?”

“I’m not _your Alex_.” The words are forceful and she wishes that he was close enough to shove again. To slap. To hurt him like he’s hurting her. “So you can stop with the fucking bullshit, okay?! I know what you want. I know you’ve been manipulating me. I know that what you’ve really been doing is trying to prepare me to open the door. Well, fuck you because I’m not going to!”

The way that the mask falls off Richard would be impressive if Alex wasn’t so terrified. Any look of love and concern is gone and when he smiles at her, there’s no way to deny the cruelness in it. “Yes.” His voice matches his smile for its coldness and Strand just steps closer to her, cutting off her exit. “You will, Alex. And if you won’t do it for love, then we’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.” The laughter from the demons is loud and all around them now, the only source of light coming from the candles on the altar that are suddenly lit and black. Alex just gasps, not understanding how she couldn’t have noticed before. 

“Why are you doing this?” There’s a desperation in Alex’s tone that she can’t help—and it’s hard and hurt and god help her it’s _sad_. “How can you just decide to turn the world over to _them_?”

“Because, Alex. My family has been waiting for this moment for centuries. Everything has led up to this. This— _all of it_ —the church, what I saw as a boy, Charlie...everything has led to this moment. Tiamat and her demons will come and will remake the world and I will be a king, Alex. You could have been a queen if you hadn’t clung so stupidly to your beliefs!”

“You don’t need to do this. You don’t need to live up to your family’s expectations. Demons lie, Richard. You yourself told me that. Demons lie. You’re disposable just like everyone else. They don’t care about you. You’re just going to be one more human they destroy.” Alex’s voice is soft, and her eyes are locked with his as she reaches out to place one blazing hand onto his cheek. “But I love you, Richard Strand. You don’t need to do this. Just let me close the door and we can leave. We can leave together and go wherever you want. You can be whatever you want. Please just let me do this.”

For a long second, Alex has hope as Richard’s hand closes over her own. It hurts, and it burns but it’s nothing like the cold fear that works through her as he just laughs. “Oh. You think you can _save me_. You think you can appeal to me with love and a happy ever after. _This isn’t that kind of story, Alex Reagan_. It never was. I don’t love you, Alex. I never did. What you were, what you _are_ is nothing more than a means to the end with the added benefit of being a good fuck. You can’t save me, Alex because there's nothing here to save. And there never was.”

While he’s talking, and while he has Alex’s rapt attention like a mouse watching a rattlesnake, Strand’s hand is busy. It moves to his back and draws the ancient knife from it. With a speed that is inhuman: the point of the blade is pressed against the soft and yielding skin of her neck, the sharp point of the metal pressing through her flesh and letting out a stream of blood. 

Alex just whimpers. She can’t help it. She whimpers and the tears come as that cold fire spreads from the point of her knife to her body and down into her heart. 

“You have a choice now, Alex.” Strand speaks to her quickly, his tone like it always was as his hand moves from her own to wrap tightly around her throat. “And it’s the last one you’ll ever make. I may not love you, but I am fond of you. And your body. So if you agree to open the door and serve me and Tiamat then I’ll allow you to live. I’m generous, Alex. I’ll even allow you to keep your family alive. And your little pet Nicodemus. Braun I’m afraid will die but the rest of your merry little band will live.”

Alex sobs softly and she shakes her head as much as she can in his grip. “No. I won’t do it.” Her voice is a low whisper. “I won’t end the world. Not to save myself. Not for anything. Not even for you.”

Leaning over, he kisses her then and it’s all sharp and teeth and Alex cries out against it. “Oh, Alex Reagan.” The words are breathed out as the knife slips deeper into her skin, widening the cut and causing her blood to well onto her shirt. “I will miss your spirit.”

There’s a loud sound at the door, and Strand’s attention whips towards it. More importantly his hand loosens and Alex lets out a loud scream for help. The grip on the knife loosens as Alex punches Richard in the face as hard as she can and there’s a force behind it that’s beyond what her father’s self defense lessons ever could have given her. Strand’s head snaps backwards, and his grip on the knife falls as he screams and stumbles back. There’s smoke coming from both her hands and his face and Alex can see where blood is streaming down his nose. The white collar that Alex so believed in, that Father Strand had _fucked her wearing_ , starts to turn and darken, finally fitting who he really is. 

And suddenly, suddenly Alex knows just what she’s supposed to do. 

Slipping quickly from the altar, Alex takes the knife that Strand had dropped next to her, and her hand wraps around the hilt as it the cold stone warms to the burnt edges of her too hot touch. Pain floods every piece of Alex’s body but she ignores it as she steps over to where Richard is laying on the ground holding his face between his hands. There’s hate in her eyes, and he lowers them as Alex kneels down next to him. For a long moment, there is nothing more than banging against the door, the sound of something heavy beginning to splinter the stout wood. Leaning over gently, Alex is glowing, the light that everyone had promised finally shining out so that even _she_ can see it. When she presses her lips to his, the glow moves from her body into his and Father Strand screams into her mouth. Drawing back, Alex’s tears fall on his hate-filled face before she whispers to him: “you know, I really did love you. I would have gone with you if you’d only let me close the door.” 

And then, with no further preamble than that, Alex slides the knife into his chest below his rip, pressing it quickly until it’s buried up to the hilt and the point pierces his heart. 

It surprises her that he doesn’t scream. Really, Father Strand should be screaming as Alex kneels there, sobbing softly. But the pain in her hands and side doesn’t stop, and the circle of blackness that is the demons presses closer to her, the light surrounding her being the only thing that keeps them from descending and tearing her flesh to pieces. The sound of the banging and splintering is louder now, and it sounds closer as Alex can feel the comparative coldness of Strand’s blood starts to seep into her jeans. Taking a deep breath, Alex’s heart is breaking, but her work isn’t done. Part of her suspects that it may never be done, but as she rises to her feet, Alex’s hands just trail through the blood around her. 

Walking to the altar that Alex knows Strand defiled, she just closes her eyes for a moment. A part of her wants to laugh in her sobbing, because Father Vincent and Simon were right--Alex does know what to do now. The symbol from when she’d first broken the circle from Sebastian was etched at the top of the altar, and it’s familiar swoops and circles come as Alex places it where she would have rested it on her forehead. “Our Father,” her voice is a soft but revenant whisper even as it’s thick with tears, as Alex moves downward, tracing the second symbol where she would have placed it on her chest were the altar a person. “Grant me your power. Let Yourself work through me.” 

The demons are screaming now, the sounds of their fury and pain drowning away the sounds from the door and beyond it, as Alex’s voice grows firmer as she traces the third symbol on the left side of the altar. “Close the doors that the Adversary and his demons have caused.” The fourth symbol forms on the right side of the altar easily, and Alex’s voice is strong and commanding, and like Charlie’s and Simon’s had been, there’s an overlay of power in it. “I banish ye, demons. I banish ye back to the depths where you belong.” In turn, Alex touches each symbol before she draws a double circle around it, using the last traces of Strand’s blood on her hands. 

As the final circle finishes, there’s a mighty scream and every stained glass window in the church shatters at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are glad that this motherfucker got what he deserved. Only the epilogue left.


	20. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strand was right. This story doesn't have a happy ever after. But maybe this is as close as it gets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we have officially come to the end of Bless. But perhaps not the end of the story. We'll see.

The ritual, or whatever Alex had done shattered more than just the windows in the church. The windows in the rectory and every building that faced within five hundred feet of Our Sacred Mother broke too, leaving a shower of bright glass gleaming in an unnatural sort of natural light, as if the sun was shining down extra hard on this part of Chicago. The doors that had been being broken down had shattered outwards as well, but both the shards of wood and glass had miraculously missed injuring or hurting anyone. Even Nic Silver and Tannis Braun who had been standing directly in front of them with the axe and trying to get inside. 

Once the doors were open, they’d rushed in, coming to Alex’s side just in time to catch her as she started to fall. “Nic?” Alex’s voice is soft, and she feels weak all over as he holds onto her. “How? What are you doing here?” 

“Tannis.” His voice is equally soft as he applies pressure to the wound on her neck, a wound that Alex didn’t even know was that bad until she can see how pale Nic is as he looks at her with concern in his puppy eyes. “As soon as you got off the Skype call with me, before I could even call Paul or Terry. He told me that you were in danger and we needed to get here. He’d already ordered plane tickets and booked a rental car.” Alex just looks to Tannis in surprise, because she’d assumed that he wouldn’t have wanted to have gotten involved, but here he was. “and we needed to rush to the airport. Then when we got to Chicago, we had to stop and get an axe. I guess he knew that we’d need one.” 

“I did.” Tannis just says softly. “I knew that he’d removed the amulet I’d given you, but last night I dreamed that you’d put it on again, that you’d discovered the truth to him that he’d kept clouded even from me. I knew that you were going to need us.” At the mention of the amulet, Alex reaches up and touches it and it doesn’t escape her notice that the collar that she’d tried so desperately to remove before is gone even if she doesn’t know when or where it had fallen off. There’s a part of her that expects that it probably had fallen off when Strand had finally died. 

“I did.” Alex just whispers softly and when she looks to Strand’s body, she starts sobbing again. “You saved me. He…” it’s hard to put the words on it, but from the looks on their faces, and the way that their eyes follow the cut on her neck, Alex knows that he knows, that Tannis had explained to Nic. “He was going to kill me. Because I wouldn’t open the door.” Then there’s desperation in her tone, and Alex reaches out her hands to grab one of Tannis’. Despite expecting them to burn, there isn’t any and instead it just feels like normal skin to skin even if her hands still ache. “Did it work? Did I close the doors?” 

Tannis doesn’t answer her question at first, instead holding onto her hand. “We didn’t save you, Alex. We were a distraction and nothing more. _You’re_ the one who saved you. You’re the one who saved all of us. That was something that you and you alone did. No matter what else happens. _You saved the world._ ”

“Okay,” Alex speaks softly, and there’s doubt in her voice. “Maybe I did. But did it work? Is it over now?”

For a moment, Tannis’ eyes drift shut, and Alex knows that he’s not there with her anymore. When he speaks, his voice is far away sounding. “Yes, Alex, you closed the doors. But not without sacrifice.” When he opens his eyes, there’s tears in them and he leans over and kisses her forehead gently. “And god, my poor girl. I’m so sorry for what comes next. But you will survive it, Alex. I promise. I promise you that you will. It won’t be without sacrifice but everything you’ve done through with him will be worth it. You’ll keep being the strong woman you are and it will end.” With the sound of shouting, he just apologizes once more, before he whispers. “The police are here now.” Before he leans over and presses his lips to her forehead. “Bless you, Alex Reagan.”

The police being here changes things. After all, Alex is still covered in the blood of the man that she’d killed even if she’s bleeding herself. Later, her lawyer will tell her that if it had just been a simple case of self defense then she wouldn’t have written the symbols in Father Strand’s blood on the altar. The note that Ruby had sent to Nic is just as damning as Strand had expected it would be to her friend when the prosecutors subpoena it, and the sisters at the church who were loyal to Father Strand have stories ready to go, stories about how Strand had been the one who was scared of Alex and how her behavior had been increasingly erratic during her time in Chicago. 

If the evidence had been as strong as people had thought it was, then they would have tried her for first degree murder. After being released from the hospital, Alex had been sent to a jail cell in protective custody, but that didn’t make things any easier. At least in the solitude Simon could come and visit her, telling her about the things that he was doing to try and help her defense. He avoided telling her about how some people within the Catholic church were attempting to get the death penalty reinstated just for her in order to punish them for denying them their rising star--but the guards were more than happy to fill her in on that. And of course what a hero Father Strand was for dying in the service of God trying to protect the insane woman that had murdered him. 

But there was still the scarf in Strand’s bedroom. There was still his fingerprints on the knife below her own, and there was still Alex’s hair and stains from the sex that they’d had that morning in his unmade bed. Photos had been taken of every inch of Alex’s body from the stitched wound in her neck, to the hand print around her throat and the bite marks in other more intimate places where Strand had left them. Father Strand had liked to mark Alex, and between the fresh ones and the fading it was at least apparent to the prosecutors that Alex wasn’t lying--at least not about the nature of their relationship. Nic tried, Alex knows, to release that piece of it to the public, but it was brushed away as more of being her fault. Not only was she evil, but she was also some sort of evil seductress as well. 

Through it all, Alex told the truth. Oh, she knew that it would probably be easier for her if she didn’t, but she’s not going to lie about it. There are demons. Father Strand was evil. She had stopped him after he tried to kill her when he couldn’t convince her to perform the ritual that he’d wanted that would bring about the end of the world. The note that Father Vincent had sent her were found in the debris of the church and added to that evidence, as were the recordings that Alex herself had made of the two of them over the course of the show. It was determined that Father Strand had been feeding into Alex’s delusions and had helped force an already unstable woman over the edge of madness. 

In the end the high priced attorney that Tannis and his Institute hired for her and Tannis himself urged her to take the plea bargain that the DA finally offered to her: involuntary manslaughter with her sentence to be served at Three Rivers for a term not more than five years. 

“You need to take the deal,” Tannis urges her as he holds her hands in the visiting room. “I promise that you’ll be released sooner than five years. Even if it’s in a way that you might not expect. You _will_ see the world you saved.” Though Tannis refuses to expand on what he means by not what she expects, Alex can’t help but to agree and plead guilty. 

She _feels guilty_. And every night Alex sees Strand in her dreams. 

Nic and Simon are livid that she takes the deal, of course. Both of them want her to fight. Even when she explains what Tannis said, Nic is furious. “He’d been manipulating you and he was going to kill you, Alex!”

“I know, Nic. I know.” Alex’s voice sounds exhausted to her own ears as he paces around the visitor room. “But I think Tannis is right. And I think it’s safer for everyone if I’m not out in the general populace for a while.”

“Alex, What does that mean? Do you think they’re still going to come after you? The Order of the Ceonophus I mean.” 

Alex doesn’t reply. She doesn’t want to do that to Nic especially because she doesn’t think that they’re still coming after her—Alex knows that they are. And that they’re going to _keep coming_. She’s not going to put anyone else in danger because of her. 

Simon’s anger is more direct. “That bastard,” he rails in the middle of the night and Alex knows that she’s the only one who can hear him. “Literally murdered the souls of hundreds of children. Including his own niece! He just gave them to them. He gave them to them like my mother. Like my father. _He hurt you. He tried to end the world and he hurt you_. And now he’s just going to get away with it! People, people who are supposed to be _good people_ are holding him up like a martyr despite everything that he’s ever done! Despite what he’s still doing to you! And now you’re going to be locked up for five years?! No Alex! No! I won’t let that happen!”

The shadow of his form starts to shiver a bit like he’s going to leave, and Simon’s anger has a living and familiar sort of heat in it. Alex’s voice is calm but firm when she speaks. “No Simon. Please don’t do anything. I’d rather do this than risk someone being hurt when they try to stack the jury against me in one way or another. They can’t get to me while I’m in here, and it’s where I’m safest for now. It won’t be forever. And once I’m free I’ll work on getting you out too.”

“Alex I killed my parents. I belong here. You don’t.”

“You killed your parents to save other kids, Simon. If I don’t belong here then neither do you. Even if they never believe us, we know what happened.”

“Alex—“ Simon protests and his voice is softer, younger sounding than she’s heard in in anything other than the recording. 

“No, Simon. If you belong here, I belong here. And I need you to promise me you’re not going to do anything. Please?”

Simon just sighs. “Fine Alex, alright. I won’t do anything to stop this. But it still isn’t right and it isn’t fair.”

“No,” there’s certainty in her tone and a certain sadness that she can’t help but to feel or express. Whatever Nic and Simon think, this isn’t easy for her. Alex’s going to be branded as an insane murderer for the rest of her life and she hates it. But this is how it has to be. This is part of the price that she has to pay for the safety of everyone else and Alex will pay it gladly over and over again if it means there’s not one more Sebastian Torres in the world. 

“It’s not right and it’s not fair, Simon. But it’s the way that it needs to be. It’s my life and it’s my choice, okay?” There’s an unspoken _please don’t be someone else who tries to take away my choices_ below the current of her soft voice that she knows Simon hears because of the way he sighs. 

“Alright Alex, But when you get there, I’ll start teaching you how to bilocate. I’m sure it’s not that much different from the light than the dark.”

For the first time since she’d walked into Three Rivers to meet Simon Reese all those months ago, Alex just laughs softly. “Okay. You’ve got a deal.” 

Maybe Strand didn’t break her as much as Alex had thought. It’s a good feeling. 

So, in the end it’s Three Rivers. Honestly, Alex doesn’t mind it. It’s nicer than she’d ever expected it to be as she sits on the edge of the bed, tracing her fingers over the stigmata that has finally healed down into a scar. When the lights go out, Alex just lays back down onto her bed but she doesn’t bother to close her eyes. Sleep has been elusive to Alex for over a year—it’s not going to get any better here. 

Especially not when she feels the same familiar dark presence in her cell that she felt for the last four months. 

“Hello, Alex.” Strand’s voice is the same as it’s always been. Deep and smooth and it moves into her in the way that it always has. 

Alex’s own answering voice is also the same sigh that it’s been since he first appeared to her in solitary confinement—which is really what protective custody actually was. “Hello Richard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops.


End file.
